EAT 0473/07

Key Facts

An Employment Tribunal had erred in restricting compensation for unfair dismissal claim only to date on which Claimant commenced his new employment. It had erred because it effectively held that the losses automatically ceased to flow from first employer (the Respondent in the case) upon fresh employment with the second employer being obtained.

In this case the Claimant’s losses were held to flow following his dismissal from the second employment because it was clear when he took the new job that it might only last for the probationary period, which in fact it did. Therefore the Tribunal had erred in saying that further compensation was irrecoverable.

Comment

The case revolves around a key section of the Employment Rights Act (Section 123) which says that the Employment Tribunal if it finds for the Claimant may award compensation in such amount as it considers just and equitable in all the circumstances having regard to “loss sustained by the Claimant in consequence of dismissal insofar as that loss is attributed to action taken by the Employer”. Employer Respondents therefore frequently argue that the chain of causation of loss flowing from their dismissal is broken by new employment.

This is a pro Claimant case. It is likely to be used as a precedent by Claimant’s solicitors in the future as support for the argument that where an employee is dismissed within a probationary period of new employment, the chain of causation from dismissal by the first employer is not broken.