Employment law brief: 7 May 2014

Two decisions reported in this month’s column concern basic (but not therefore easy) points of unfair dismissal law. The third case is yet another “interesting” case on TUPE; it is on unusual facts, but could still be of some significance generally on the definition of a “service provision change”.

Reasonableness of a dismissal (i): risk of harm to career

In Monji v Boots Management Services Ltd UKEAT/0292/13 the tribunal found the claimant’s dismissal for suspected theft of store goods fair substantively and procedurally. On appeal, the claimant’s argument was that, as a professional pharmacist, a fair dismissal would have a particularly acute effect on her future livelihood and that this fact had not been taken sufficiently into account by the tribunal as a factor on its own (potentially raising the bar on the level of investigation needed), as required by the decision of the EAT in A v B [2003] IRLR 405, [2003] All ER (D) 184 (May) and more particularly that of the