Dismissal for Misconduct
Alan Kitto
The question of whether an employee can be dismissed for misconduct without prior warning when multiple issues arise, none of which are by themselves, gross misconduct has been answered by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in Mbubaegbu v Homerton University Hospital.
The EAT said, 'It is quite possible for a series of acts demonstrating a pattern of conduct to be of sufficient seriousness to undermine the relationship of trust and confidence between employer and employee'.
It saw, 'No reason why an employer would be acting outside the range of reasonable responses were it to dismiss an employee in whom it had lost trust and confidence in this way".
This is an important ruling for employers when dealing with an employee who doesn't commit a single serious act, but several less serious ones.