If you are an employee with at least one year’s continuous employment, your employer cannot dismiss you without relying on one of the potentially fair reasons set out in law. The five potentially fair reasons are :

• Incapability or qualification (including incapability through ill health)
• Misconduct
• Illegality
• Redundancy
• Some Other Substantial Reason which justifies the dismissal of the employee holding the position which the employee held.

Your employer must act reasonably in dismissing you for one of these reasons and must follow a fair procedure before dismissing you. In deciding whether a dismissal is fair, a tribunal would take into account the size and administrative resources of the employer, but would not be allowed to substitute its own decision for that of the employer.

Employment tribunals must take the ACAS Code of Guidance on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures into account when deciding most unfair dismissal cases. The tribunal may decide to increase or reduce compensation by up to 25% for any unreasonable failure by an employer or employee to follow the ACAS Code, for example, if your employer dismisses you for misconduct without giving you the right to appeal against that decision.

There are some very limited circumstances where you can still bring a claim with just less than one year’s continuous service. There are also circumstances where there is no minimum service requirement at all to bring a claim for unfair dismissal. These dismissals are treated as automatically unfair and a tribunal will not need to consider whether the employer acted reasonably or not. For example, it is automatically unfair to dismiss an employee because he/she has sought to exercise her right to take time off to care for a dependant.

If your employer has failed to give you a fair reason for dismissal, failed to follow a proper procedure, or if you think your employer is about to dismiss you unfairly, please please contact Rosa Brennan by email or telephone 01689 887872.

Remember, there are very strict time limits for making claims in the tribunal and these can be as short as 3 months, so you should seek legal advice as soon as possible.