Labour Research February 2022

Law Matters

‘Frivolous’ grievances led to dismissal being fair

A policy adviser had his claim of unfair dismissal rejected by an employment tribunal after it accepted that his repeated use of informal grievances and refusal to take them to a formal stage, or to attend a grievance meeting, was vexatious and unreasonable.

The ruling was upheld by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in Hope v British Medical Association EA-2021-000187-JOJ.

Senior policy adviser Mr Hope was employed by the British Medical Association (BMA) from June 2014 to May 2019, when he was dismissed for gross misconduct.

He had raised a number of grievances about management, including that he was excluded from meetings, but refused to formalise them.

The EAT said the tribunal had been entitled to conclude that the employer had acted reasonably in treating Hope’s conduct as a sufficient reason to dismiss him in the circumstances, which is what the test of unfair dismissal under section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 required.

The employer did not need to establish that his conduct involved a breach of contract amounting to gross misconduct.

https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2021/2021-000187.html