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The Employment Appeal Tribunal has handed down a very useful decision in Dabson v David Cover and Sons.
This case states that when assessing the fairness of selection for redundancy, the marks awarded in the scoring process should only be investigated by the Tribunal in exceptional circumstances such as bias or obvious mistake.
The Respondent was a family run transport business and the Claimant had been employed since 1981, and had worked his way up from the yard to a Transport Manager. Redundancies had to take place and the Claimant was pooled with another candidate. The Claimant's scores were the lowest and he was selected for redundancy. The Claimant then disputed his scores and issued a claim of unfair dismissal primarily on the basis that he had not been fairly scored.
The Tribunal found no evidence that the Claimant had been deliberately underscored and were satisfied that the assessor had formed a genuine belief that he had scored the Claimant fairly and reasonably. The Tribunal said that it was not for them to "re-score" the Claimant. As such, the Tribunal was satisfied that the dismissal was fair and within the reasonable range of responses. The Claimant appealed.
This case confirms that an Employment Tribunal should only investigate marking where there was evidence of an absence of good faith or obvious error. At a time when employers had been called on to make hard decisions on redundancies, this is a timely and useful case which reaffirms and strengthens the law.
For any more information on this are or for specific advice on any other employment issues please contact WBR on 0845 600 4996 or email info@williambrose.com
