Disciplinary Hearing Help??????

zzzLazyDaisy

Good advice from oreally. It is always useful to sit in on a hearing. They are open to the public and the clerks are generally very helpful.

Most unfair dismissal cases are done within a day, although as oreally says, some cases take longer. As a rule of thumb a one day hearing is normally 10am to 4pm with a break between 1pm and 2pm, although than varies a bit from one ET to another.

If you ask a clerk to point you in the direction of an unfair dismissal case, you'll get a good feel for what goes on. If OH is particularly anxious it might be a good idea to do this early on, and maybe again closer to the hearing. But seeing as many cases settle anyway, you can leave this till later if you prefer.

mrg22

Hi All
I was wondering if anyone could explain the difference between wrongful and unfair dismissal?
Thanks!!!

zzzLazyDaisy

Wrongful dismissal is when an employee is dismissed without being given the notice specified in their contract. Often an employer will dismiss with immediate effect, but give a 'payment in lieu of notice'. This is technically compensation for being wrongfully dismissed. Sometimes the employer fails to pay notice at all, then the employee can make a claim to the ET for 'wrongful dismissal' or 'breach of contract' (the two are the same).

Unfair dismissal is a statutory animal. It is where an employer dismisses an employee in breach of the employment protection legislation which states (in simple terms) that there must be a fair reason for the dismissal AND the employer must follow a fair procedure. Again the employee can make a claim to an ET, but in this case, if the employee is succesful, the calculation of compensation is more complicated and takes into account a number of variables such as length of service, contributory fault, how much the employee might have earned with that employer had thing been done differently, whether the employee has found another job and if not what effort they have made to do so.

Hope this helps

Daisy