To hull and back: the Court of Appeal has decided that tribunals can award compensation for injury to feelings where an employee has suffered from the manner of an unfair dismissal.
| Author | Nickson, Sue |
| Position | Legal |
Unfair dismissal compensation under the Employment Rights Act 1996 should be "such amount as the tribunal considers just and equitable in all the circumstances having regard to the loss sustained by the complainant in consequence of the dismissal". This has been consistently interpreted as economic loss only--ie, pay and benefits. But doubts were raised in 2001 by Johnson v Unisys Ltd, in which Lord Hoffmann suggested that compensation could be awarded for distress, humiliation and damage to reputation in the community or family life arising from the manner of the dismissal.
Hoffmann's comments were irrelevant to the result of Johnson and so weren't strictly binding on later decisions, but the point has now been revisited by the Court of Appeal in Dunnachie v Kingston upon Hull City Council. Dunnachie was employed as an environmental health officer from 1986 until he resigned in 2001. In the months before he left, he was subjected to prolonged harassment by his line manager that reduced him to a "state of despair". Dunnachie's requests to discuss the problem with senior managers were allegedly ignored.
The employment tribunal found constructive dismissal and awarded him 123,328 [pounds sterling] (reduced to 51,700 [pounds sterling] in accordance with the statutory cap at that time). The tribunal's breakdown of the compensation award was what caused the controversy: it included 10,000 [pounds sterling] for the distress that he suffered before he left. The council appealed to the Employment Appeals Tribunal, which overturned the decision, so rejecting any recovery for non-economic loss in cases of unfair dismissal. Recognising the importance of the issues, however, it allowed Dunnachie to go to the Court of Appeal.
The court ruled that compensation for non-economic loss caused by the manner of an unfair dismissal was recoverable in principle, and that the wording of the act was wide enough to cover such a loss. It has granted leave for an appeal to the House of Lords, but the decision is binding on lower courts until that happens. The court has stressed that its ruling applies only where an applicant has suffered from the manner, rather than the fact, of his or her...
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