Successful Challenge to Wrongful and Unfair Dismissal at Employment Tribunal

OUTCOME: Allowed

Case Number: 6021346/2025

1

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS

Claimant: [redacted]

Respondent [APPELLANT] FOR THE JUDGMENT1

1. The claims were for wrongful dismissal and unfair dismissal. I heard evidence from the Respondent’s witnesses, Ms [RESPONDENT] ([RESPONDENT]), Mr [RESPONDENT] (disciplinary officer) Mr [NAME] ([RESPONDENT]) and Mr [APPELLANT] (appeal officer), and then from the Claimant. The documents were in a bundle of 172 pages.

2. I have anonymized the name of the customer referred to below, and made a separate Rule 49 Order about him, as my findings of fact (which are based on what I have been told by others and read in the trial bundle) do not reflect well on him, and he has not had the opportunity to be heard by me about these matters. Facts 3. The Claimant was employed by the Respondent from 24/10/2009 to 20/3/2025 when he was summarily dismissed. At that time, he had been working as an [NAME] at [NAME]. He had started in this role and location from 1/8/24. He was responsible for the workshop and front-of-house [NAME] department and a team of 8-10 colleagues. He and the [NAME] Manager were the most senior employees on [NAME]. Their Line manager was Mr [NAME].

4. A customer, (who I shall refer to as [NAME]), was known to be difficult. He was aggressive and unpleasant when he did not get his own way and caused trouble and manipulated situations to get discounts. As a result, the [APPELLANT] predecessor (as a manager at [NAME]) had told [APPELLANT] that, in future he should take his vehicle to [NAME] instead. This was not a formal ban but an indication that [NAME] was no longer welcome at the [NAME].

5. In September 2024, after the [NAME] had started work at [NAME], he agreed to allow X to come back to the [NAME]. This was also dealt with informally by him.

1 Judgment signed on 13/5/2026, written reasons requested by the Claimant on 18/5/26

Case Number: 6021346/2025

2 6. In February 2025, X brought a car in to the [NAME] have some work done. Some initial diagnostic work was carried out, for which the Respondent would have been entitled to be paid in the normal course of events. [APPELLANT] wanted to get the work covered by a warranty. The [APPELLANT] and his team were sure that the work would not be covered, but [RESPONDENT] insisted and made a fuss to force the Respondent to go along with his warranty claim. Over several days starting on or around 4/2/25 he was aggressive, abusive, and intimidating in his manner towards employees at the [NAME] staff, mainly over the telephone.

7. The [APPELLANT] intervened because he witnessed his team members being harassed and abused. He tried to act as a buffer between X and the dealership staff, and to try to get the warranty issue resolved.

8. Unfortunately, the facility to record the conversations through incoming telephone conversations was unavailable at the [NAME], but a log of X’s incoming telephone calls to the Respondent over the relevant period was produced. It shows about 29 calls from 2-14 February with 15 on 4/2/25 and 6 on 14/2/25.

9. On 5/2/25 the Claimant wrote the following message to [NAME] at [APPELLANT] (which is an associated company providing support services to the Respondent) “I am awaiting some information from warranty on this. This customer is a red flag. He has been banned from [NAME] previously. We have advised him that the timing chain is rattling slightly, warranty would not cover this due to the fact the fault is very minor. Customer has harassed this dealership all afternoon yesterday, called ourselves and another of our dealerships 15 times since picking his vehicle up, ….”

10. That message (with others in the chain) was copied to Mr [APPELLANT] on 10/2/25 at 15.05 but he did not contact the Claimant about it then.

11. On 14 February 2025, X called again and was aggressive towards the Claimant, until the latter identified himself, which surprised X, who then calmed down.

12. The same day at 16.07 the Claimant sent an email to X including the following “…calling us bluntly telling us that we are not doing our jobs is not going to help yourself. My team do not want to accept your calls due to the allegations and mannerisms, which I witnessed today, towards them when calling in. You have been banned from our [NAME] previously and have been allowed to trade with ourselves under the conditions that this behaviour does not resume, if it continues, I will have no choice but to end this partnership in trying to get your vehicle fixed and insist you seek another dealership to start these proceedings with again. I will not have my team feeling threatened by anyone”.

13. The Claimant told X that all further contact between X and the [NAME] should be by email. This was to protect the Respondent’s staff from abusive phone calls.

Case Number: 6021346/2025

3 14. On 14 February 2025, X sold the car the subject of his complaints but did not tell the Respondent about this. Instead he changed tack and started arguing that the Respondent should not charge him for it’s initial diagnostic work. The [APPELLANT] and his staff thought that this was typical of X because in their view, he had “always been out for as much as he can get for nothing” and his tactics included creating unnecessary conflict and stress in order to force concessions in his favour.

15. On 17/2/25 at 12.41 [APPELLANT] sent an email to the Claimant making what the latter reasonably regarded as unjustified complaints about faulty diagnostic work, saying that he had been mischarged £80 and demanding a refund so he could take his work to another dealership (not the Respondent).

16. The Claimant replied at 12.51 politely and carefully rebutting [APPELLANT] claims and asking for further instructions

17. At 13.12 X again emailed, not engaging with what the Claimant had sent at 12.51 but simply repeating what he ([APPELLANT]) had sent at 12.41.

18. At 13.35 the Claimant sent another polite email saying that he had already responded to [NAME] points and asking for further instructions.

19. At 13.46 [APPELLANT] emailed again, not engaging with what the [APPELLANT] had tried to explain to him but that he had “told the [NAME]”, he wanted a copy of the complaints procedure, and a full refund and would be taking his car elsewhere.

20. At 13.49 once again the [APPELLANT] replied politely, this time saying that the Respondent had diagnosed the fault correctly and were still waiting for an answer on the warranty, and offering, if [NAME] no longer wanted the work done, to cancel the warranty claim.

21. [NAME] then emailed at 14.11 in a rude and dismissive manner, again pressing complaints about the Respondent’s diagnostic work, and a claim for a refund now in the sum of £160, that he intended to take his car elsewhere, and that the delays which he blamed the Respondent for, were causing were costing him £250 per day. He also accused the Claimant of “saying one thing and doing another.”

22. At 14.56 C sent an email to X copied to Mr [NAME] which included the following in the following “Please allow me to put this in simple terms. At no point have we asked you to contact anyone. You have done this because it is your character to stir everything up and make everything a mess…”

23. It was the Claimant’s sending of this email (and to a lesser extent the email of 14/2 at 16.07) which caused the Respondent to dismiss him.

Case Number: 6021346/2025

4 24. At 17.30 on 17/2/25 Mr [APPELLANT] emailed the Claimant that he should not send emails like this to customers, because it was condescending and rude.

25. On 17 or 18/2/2025 X made an oral complaint to [COMPANY] following which [NAME] sent a message to Mr [NAME] on 18/2/25 at 12.45 notifying him.

26. Mr [APPELLANT] then sent a message to the Claimant that he should not have any further contact with X and that Mr [RESPONDENT] would deal with him from then on.

27. The Respondent places a high value on providing courteous customer service, good oral and written communication with customers and protecting its brand. These values are emphasised in the staff handbook.

28. Mr [NAME] and Ms [APPELLANT] held an investigation meeting with the Claimant on 5/3/25.

29. The Claimant requested access to telephone call recordings to support his account of the abusive telephone calls which had prompted his final emails to [NAME], but no such recordings had been made.

30. The Claimant suggested that the Respondent speak to the Claimant’s team members who had been subjected to [APPELLANT] behaviour over the relevant period in February. This was not done. Instead Mr [NAME] and Ms [NAME] devised a questionnaire which asked the team members about [NAME] behaviour in general terms. The answers to these questionnaires were never produced to the Claimant. Instead Mr [APPELLANT] created a summary document containing the answers, examples of which were: [NAME] has always been out for as much as he can get for nothing. [NAME] refused to serve him and I think he should never have been allowed back in the [NAME]. [NAME] is quite loud, brash and obnoxious. He comes across as a bit of a creep around women actually - I'm often quite uncomfortable in his company. I think we have handled the situation with dignity, patience, professionalism and calmly. Often having to cave into his demands because others have told us we have to. I don't think anything could have been done to avoid Xs "concerns". I believe he will always find a problem where they don't exist anyway. He's rude and obnoxious, clearly thinks he's being funny but he's one of our most challenging customers, and was very loud about his misgivings in the showroom previously, directing them towards other customers to try to put them off coming here too. Him and his friend …keep saying they're not going to come back but still they persist - that they'll tell everyone (….) about how bad our services are. He has never been treated badly - every member of staff that has been nothing but professional and patient, even friendly, with this man, even though he's just awful.

Case Number: 6021346/2025

5 31. Ms [NAME] and Mr [NAME] decided to refer the matter for a disciplinary hearing which was held by Mr [NAME] on 11 March 2025. The charges against the C were Poor handling of a customer and their concerns, leading to a serious complaint and possible damage to the reputation of [NAME]; and Unprofessional behaviour, not becoming of a Manager.

32. There was a thorough discussion of the case but towards the end Mr [NAME] started discussing the lower-than-average customer recommendation score for [NAME], which Mr [APPELLANT] suggested was the Claimant’s responsibility. Although this was not referred to in the dismissal letter, in his oral evidence Mr [NAME] confirmed that this factor had played a part in his decision to dismiss the Claimant.

33. The meeting was adjourned and resumed on 31/3/2025 when Mr [APPELLANT] told the Claimant that he was summarily dismissed. During the course this Mr [NAME] said the following: “there's no evidence that [NAME] was abusive or threatening, which obviously from the [NAME] banned incidences we'd seem to think he was. But in this instance, we couldn't find any evidence of that.”

34. Mr [APPELLANT] in his oral evidence struggled to say where the Claimant’s conduct was defined in the Respondent’s disciplinary procedure. He first stated that he thought it fell into “mildly inappropriate comments or behaviour at work” which is one of the examples given of misconduct but not gross misconduct. Eventually and after a delay (during which I think he was prompted by someone out of sight but in the same room in which he was giving evidence2), he suggested it was “a serious breach of [NAME]’ rules and regulations and bringing the company into disrepute”. However, no such link or identification was made during the disciplinary hearing or in the dismissal letter itself.

35. The Claimant appealed on 25/3/25.The appeal hearing was held by Mr [NAME] assisted by Ms [NAME] on 3/4/25.

36. In her oral evidence Ms [NAME] agreed she had assisted Mr [NAME] in making his decision to dismiss the appeal, although she said in re-examination that it was just Mr [NAME] decision and the transcript of the appeal does not show her saying much. The appeal was dismissed.

37. The Claimant had complained in his appeal about the lack of recordings of X’s many phone calls into the [NAME], Mr [NAME] dismissed this by suggesting that in fact X had not made an excessive number of calls and had not been harassing.

2 After Mr [RESPONDENT] had finished giving his evidence, Mr [RESPONDENT] suggested that I warn the witnesses against conferring.

Case Number: 6021346/2025

6

38. Mr [NAME] also wrote “your emails to X provided a black and white view of what you said in writing to X word for word”, but made no reference to the excessive and unpleasant X emails earlier on 17/2/25.

39. The Claimant had received a written reprimand for his behaviour on 23/2/2017 when he was at the [NAME] and had received a final written warning lasting one year from 5/12/2023, which was spent on 4/12/24. These were not for matters which were similar to or had any connection with the reason for his dismissal in 2025 and the evidence suggests that Mr [NAME] did not take them into account when deciding to dismiss the Claimant.

40. X made some kind of claim against the Respondent which was compromised by the Respondent paying him £160. A summary of relevant law 41. Where the conduct of the employee is established by the employer as a potentially fair reason for dismissal under section Section 98(1) and (2) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, then section 98(4) must be considered which provides as follows: Where the employer has fulfilled the requirements of subsection (1), the determination of the question whether the dismissal is fair or unfair (having regard to the reason shown by the employer) –depends upon whether in the circumstances (including the size and administrative resources of the employer’s undertaking) the employer acted reasonably or unreasonably in treating it as a sufficient reason for dismissing the employee andshall be determined in accordance with equity and the substantial merits of the case.’

42. A dismissal for misconduct will not be unfair if it is based on a genuine belief on the part of the employer that the Applicant had perpetrated the misconduct, which belief is based on reasonable grounds following a reasonable investigation [NAME] v Burchell [1978] IRLR 379.

43. An Employment Tribunal should not substitute itself for an employer or act as if it were conducting a rehearing of or an appeal against the merits of an employer’s decision to dismiss. The employer not the Tribunal is the proper [APPELLANT] to conduct the investigation into the alleged misconduct. The function of the Tribunal is to decide whether that investigation is reasonable in the circumstances and whether the decision to dismiss, in the light of the result of that investigation, is a reasonable response. HSBC v Madden [2000] ICR 1283.

44. The range of reasonable responses test (or to put another way, the need to apply the objective standards of the reasonable employer) applies as much to the question whether the investigation into the suspected misconduct was reasonable in all the circumstances, as it does to the reasonableness of the decision to dismiss for the conduct reason. [NAME] 2002 EWCA CIV 1588

Conclusions

Case Number: 6021346/2025

7 45. The Claimant’s emails of 14 and 17 Feb 2025 (referred to above as the reasons for dismissal) were lacking in the deference and professional tone in which the Respondent wishes its managers to communicate with customers. So much was acknowledged by the [APPELLANT] himself during the disciplinary process. The Claimant also rightly acknowledged that he should have called in assistance from other more senior managers to help deal with the situation.

46. However. there was a substantial mitigating explanation for the emails, namely that for about 12 days up to their creation, [APPELLANT] had been subjecting the Claimant and his team to abuse over the telephone and then by email. Although the Claimant did not articulate this well, the obvious point in his favor was that his emails had been written under provocation from [NAME], and with the selfless motivation of protecting his team from abuse and protecting the Respondent’s business against unjustified demands for a discount or refund.

47. There was abundant contemporaneous evidence of this. For example, the Claimant’s email of 5/2/25 to [NAME] refers to the fact that on 4/2/25 X had been harassing staff at the [NAME] and had been making excessive phone calls. The Claimant’s email of 14/2/25 refers to the Claimant having witnessed X’s “allegations and mannerisms” towards Cs team which [NAME] had witnessed himself earlier that day, and that his team felt threatened. The answers to the questionnaire were consistent with, and supported the Claimant’s version of events, albeit that the questionnaire had had the shortcoming that it did not address the specifics of the telephone conversations during the crucial period. Although the excessive and abusive phone calls from X had ceased on 14/2/25, thereafter [NAME] had continued his manipulative and aggressive communications by email, particularly earlier on 17/2/25 before the Claimant’s final email to him.

48. [NAME] did not accept the Claimant’s version of events. He proceeded on the basis that “there's no evidence that [NAME] was abusive or threatening, which obviously from the [NAME] banned incidences we'd seem to think he was. But in this instance, we couldn't find any evidence of that.”.

49. That was a perverse conclusion because it flew in the face of the available evidence.

50. It was unfortunate and somewhat surprising that the Respondent did not record all client calls into the [NAME], but the failure to do so made it necessary for the Respondent’s investigator or decision makers to carry out further and better enquiries about [NAME] behaviour, by interviewing specific team members whose conversations with [APPELLANT] had been witnessed by the Claimant. Those investigations, which would have been easy for the Respondent, were not carried out. For this reason, the investigation fell outside a range of reasonable responses.

Case Number: 6021346/2025

8 51. Having failed to accept the Claimant’s version of events which provided the mitigating explanation for his emails, Mr [NAME] then went on to simply examine their contents as if they were written in the normal course of business to a normal customer, and concluded that the Claimant had simply “lost control of the situation”.

52. The dismissal letter also stated that the Claimant had been guilty of letting a previously banned customer ([NAME]) back into the [NAME] in the first place. In fact, when the [NAME] manager had asked [NAME] to take his business away from [NAME], that had been done informally and was not an official ban. There was no policy requiring these types of decisions to be made at Director level and as the [NAME] manager had sent [APPELLANT] away without such approval, the Claimant would have had no reason to have thought he required such approval before allowing him back. This was not misconduct and it was unfair to treat it as such.

53. Mr [APPELLANT] also took into account the Claimant’s claimed responsibility for the claimed low customer-recommendation-score at [NAME]. It is not shown that this was the Claimant’s fault, but even if it was, it would not have been treated as a misconduct matter. Possibly it would have been a performance issue, and if so it should have been dealt with separately and not allowed to contaminate the disciplinary process.

54. Mr [NAME] dismissal letter also shows how he was motivated also by the fact that he feared that [RESPONDENT] would seek “considerable compensation from the Respondent and is prepared to take legal action against us”. The fact that [NAME] had made a claim was not a reason to find gross misconduct by the Claimant. The available evidence suggests that [APPELLANT] claim was unfounded and settled for its minor nuisance value only.

55. A policy requiring managers to be polite to customers should not be rigorously enforced against managers in the type of exceptional situation which the Claimant found himself in. The Respondent’s own staff including managers have rights themselves not to be abused at work, and when they are, some understanding and empathy should be shown to them by the Respondent.

56. The Claimant had stood up to [APPELLANT], tried to protect his team and not caved into [APPELLANT] spurious demands. Instead of throwing the Claimant to the wolves, giving into [APPELLANT] bullying and paying him off, which rewarded his bad behaviour, the Respondent would have done better to have supported the Claimant, provided him with some words of guidance about how to deal with this type of situation in future, and shown some interest and empathy for the impact which [NAME] had had on him and on his team over an extended period.

Case Number: 6021346/2025

9 57. Understood in its proper context, which both Mr [NAME] and Mr [APPELLANT] ignored or unreasonably found unproved, what the Claimant did was certainly not gross misconduct. It was certainly not “a serious breach of [NAME] rules and regulations”. The Respondent’s conclusions were not based on reasonable grounds.

58. Summary dismissal was not within a range of reasonable responses. At the most the case called for a warning.

59. The Claimant was not guilty of a fundamental breach of contract so the Respondent was not entitled to dismiss him without notice.

60. Hence the unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal claims succeed.

61. The Claimant agreed that notwithstanding the situation he was placed in, he could have improved on the wording of the relevant emails he sent on 14 and 17/2/25, and that instead of writing and sending them in those terms, he should have called in Mr [NAME] more insistently to deal with the situation. To that extent, the Claimant was guilty of some mild misconduct only. For purposes of his unfair dismissal claim, I assess his contributory fault at 15%. Remedy 62. This section of the Reasons should be read with the Schedule to the Judgment.

63. The Claimant had 14 years’ service and was entitled to 12 weeks’ notice.

64. I made no [NAME] award for lost earnings for the first 12 weeks after the EDT, as he is being compensated for that period by his wrongful dismissal award.

65. The Respondent’s [NAME] closed on 31/1/26 and the Claimant told me that had he not been dismissed on 20/3/25 he would likely have been dismissed for redundancy then.

66. The period of loss I award [NAME] compensation for is therefore 20/6/25 (the expiry of the period covered by the wrongful dismissal award) to 31/1/26.

Case Number: 6021346/2025

10 67. The Claimant had been appointed by the Respondent to a new role with higher pay on 1/8/24. Based on his payslips from then on to EDT his average net earnings were £2712.90 per month.

68. The Claimant had the benefit of the use a company car (typically a new Toyota CHR) from the Respondent. He contended that the value of that benefit was £441 per month, referring to a P11D form for 24/25, which however he had not disclosed. The Respondent countered that per [COMPANY] (1984) ICR 532, such a document was not a reliable indication of a company car value, and further that the Claimant had the burden of proof but had not disclosed any evidence of the value, but the Respondent consented to the value being assessed at £300 net per month. I have accepted and applied that figure on the basis that the Claimant has not proved any higher figure. After adding the car use value to the average net payslip amount, the Claimant’s net pay from R was £3012.90 per month and 695.28 per week.

69. I have been provided with the Claimant’s P60 for the year ended 5/4/2026 which shows his gross pay with his [NAME] [APPELLANT] from 20/5/25 to the end of March 26, and with the Claimant’s bank statements showing his receipt of actual net salary with his [NAME], which evidence shows that the Claimant’s average take home pay with the [NAME] is £2400 net per month. He does not now have the benefit of a company car.

70. Hence the Claimant’s new pay caused him a loss of net pay of £3012.90 - £2400 = £612.90 per month. I awarded 7.33 month’s worth of that loss (for the reasons given above) plus LOSR, and pension loss,- and discounted the whole of the [NAME] award by 15% for contributory fault.

Employment Judge Burns Date: 20 May 2026

Sent to the parties on 26 May 2026

[NAME] For the Tribunal Office

Case Number: 6021346/2025

1

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS

Claimant: [redacted]

Respondent [APPELLANT] at Bristol (by [NAME]) On:

12 and 13/5/2026

Before:

Employment Judge Mr J S Burns

Representation Claimant: [redacted] Respondent: [redacted]

JUDGMENT 1. The claim of wrongful dismissal succeeds 2. The claim of unfair dismissal succeeds with contributory fault of 15% 3. The compensation payable by the Respondent to the Claimant is £21031.11 as shown in the Schedule of which £8330 is payable within 14 days of the date that this document is sent to the parties and the appropriate balance when the recoupment regulations have been complied with.

Employment Judge Burns Date: 13 May 2026

Sent to the parties on 26 May 2026

[NAME] For the Tribunal Office

Schedule Wrongful dismissal 12 x 695.28 =

£8343.36

Unfair dismissal Basic award £700 x 14

£9800 Compensatory award LOSR

£500 Difference in pay 20/6/25 to 31/1/2026. 7.33 x £612.90= £4492 Loss of pension at 3 percent of above comp award sums £135 Subtotal

£14927 Less 15% contrib fault

(£2239)

Case Number: 6021346/2025

2 [NAME]

£12687.95 Grand total

£21031.31

Recoupment: The Claimant whose NI number is [ID] received state benefits subject to the recoupment regulations. The prescribed amount is £12701.31. The prescribed period is 20/3/25 to 31/1/26. The difference between the prescribed amount and the total award is £8330

Note: Summary oral reasons were provided during the Hearing and full written reasons will be provided in writing only if a written request is made by either party within 14 days of the date that this document is sent to the parties by The Tribunal Office. Written reasons, if produced, will be published on the internet by the UK Government on the Register of ET Judgments. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………