In Dockerty v FM Fabrications, Dockerty claimed that he had been unfairly dismissed by his employers, FM Fabrications. The Employment Tribunal held in favour of Dockerty and ruled that the redundancy process by which Dockerty had been chosen for dismissal was unfair resulting in an unfair dismissal. The Employment Tribunal ordered FM Fabrications to pay Dockerty 17,997.40 in damages.

FM Fabrications appealed this decision to the Employment Appeal Tribunal ("EAT"?) and claimed that the Employment Tribunal had erred in law by not considering a Polkey reduction. If a decision is held to be procedurally unfair, the Employment Tribunal will ask itself whether this failure would have ultimately made a difference in the outcome. If not, then compensation will be limited to the period it would have taken for a proper procedure to take place before a fair dismissal could have occurred. This is commonly known as a Polkey reduction.

The EAT ruled that:

The ET had not considered whether a Polkey reduction should be made;

The ET must address a two stage question when calculating compensation for unfair dismissal:

1) Would an offer of employment have resulted had the proper procedure been followed?; and

2) If so, what would that employment have been and what wages would have been paid?

The appeal was allowed and remitted to the Employment Tribunal for a new judgment.

Comment: Please contact us if you have any questions about assessing compensation for an unfair dismissal.

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RT COOPERS, 2006. This Briefing Note does not provide a comprehensive or complete statement of the law relating to the issues discussed nor does it constitute legal advice. It is intended only to highlight general issues. Specialist legal advice should always be sought in relation to particular circumstances.