Greater Damages for Wrongful Dismissal following Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Wrongful dismissal is a dismissal in breach of contract. The employee will have a claim in damages if the employer, in dismissing them, breached the contract, thereby causing them loss. Breach of a contractual disciplinary or redundancy procedure are often involved in claims for wrongful dismissal.
Where there is a contractual obligation to follow a disciplinary or redundancy procedure and the employer fails to follow it, the employee may claim for the loss of wages for the period of time that the procedure would have taken had it been followed. In addition, the Court of Appeal in Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust held that an employee could, in principle, recover greater damages if he could show that the disciplinary procedures were likely to end in his favour.
In the case Dr Edwards, a consultant at Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, was dismissed for gross professional and personal misconduct. He issued proceedings for breach of contract claiming that, in addition to his notice period, he was entitled to damages not only for the time it would have taken the Trust to properly carry out its disciplinary procedure but also for his continued employment as a result of the Trust dismissing the allegations against him, as it would have done had the procedure been properly observed.
The case potentially opens the door to huge loss of earnings awards for employees who are unable to find alternative employment due to loss of reputation because of their dismissal.
Contact
Judith Ellery Head of Employment
David Baynton Solicitor
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