United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	DAN SQUIRES (Of Counsel) Instructed by Matrix Chambers Griffin Building Gray's Inn London WC1R 5LN


 


JUDGE COLLINS

1. This is the preliminary hearing of an Appeal against the decision of an Employment Tribunal sitting at London South. The Extended Reasons were promulgated on 19 July 2000. It appears from the Extended Reasons that the Tribunal first sat to consider the case on 18 February 1999 and did not reconvene until 27 June 2000.
2. This is an application which had originally been lodged with the Tribunal on 29 July 1998. Since it took the Tribunal some two years to resolve it, it would, we think, have been helpful if the Tribunal had stated in its Extended Reasons why the case had taken so long to be reconvened. We have had an explanation, because Mr Nathan who appeared below for the Respondents has attended today as an observer and has told us what happened. It does not seem as though anybody was at fault so far as we can tell, for the delay which took place.
3. The Tribunal dismissed the Appellant's application that she had been unfairly dismissed. She was employed by the Respondents as an assistant manager at their franchised branch of Harry Ramsden's restaurant at Heathrow Airport from 1994. She was dismissed effectively by a letter dated 8 May 1998 for a failure to comply with cash handling regulations. The Tribunal held that that was the reason for her dismissal and that the employers had shown that they acted reasonably in treating that as a sufficient reason for dismissing her.
4. The specific allegations arose from an investigation that was made by professional investigators on 22 and 24 April 1998. There are six incidents which are specified in the letter written on 8 May after the disciplinary hearing which had been held on 30 April. It is quite correct to state, as Mr Squires on the Appellant's behalf has emphasised, that the word 'fraud' is used on a number of occasions in relation to credit card dealings. However, when the facts alleged are analysed it is apparent that the complaints which are being made against the Appellant and which are relied upon as reasons for dismissing her are irrespective of any fraud or dishonesty on her part.
5. The letter concludes by saying that in the light of the facts the Appellant was in breach of company cash handling procedures and that failure to follow company cash handling procedures is an act of gross misconduct. There is no reference to fraud or dishonesty as constituting any part of the reasons to dismiss. It is unfortunate that the word was used in the letter because it does not seem to have in fact been fraud or dishonesty as such which was the subject of the investigation.
6. Four of the transactions relate to credit card transactions which are validated but not recorded. Two of the transactions related to cash receipts which were not recorded. The critical fact which emerged from the disciplinary hearing on 30 April was that the Appellant was not able to give any explanation in relation to the six transactions. We find it difficult in those circumstances to imagine quite what the employers could have done other than dismiss somebody in the position of an assistant manager who was unable to give any explanation of a series of six financial irregularities over a period of two days.
7. However, Mr Squires has made a number of points on her behalf with skill and clarity and we ought to look at them. The first relates to the word 'fraud' in the letter. He would have had some difficulty in mounting the argument if the word 'fraud' had not been used. In conjunction with that use of the word he points out that the Tribunal admitted evidence that the investigators had found that there were cash shortages on one or two days. He says that he was denied by the Tribunal the opportunity to call evidence to rebut the inevitable suggestion of dishonesty that arises from those cash shortages.
8. There are a number of points to be made. Firstly, there was no direct case put against the Appellant at the disciplinary meeting that she was responsible for the cash shortages. She was not the only person who worked in this restaurant and there may have been other people who were also guilty of cash handling failures. Secondly, the question was not whether the Tribunal thought that the Appellant was dishonest or not. The question was first, what was the reason why the employers dismissed her and second, did they treat that reasonably in all the circumstances as a reason for doing so. It is clear from a fair reading of the letter of 8 May that she was not dismissed for fraud or dishonesty or for any shortfall in the till, but because of the six specific unexplained examples of failure to observe cash handling procedures. We do not think there is a point of law which arises from the dishonesty issue. In our judgment the second line of argument which Mr Squires puts forward as to a want of natural justice is to the same effect. It is directed to the dishonesty issue and simply was not an issue which arose for consideration. It does not seem to us that the matter need be considered any further.
9. Finally it is alleged that the decision to dismiss her for a failure to observe cash handling procedures was one to which no reasonable employer could have come. The decision was a perverse one. Mr Squires candidly concedes that it is a difficult argument to pursue particularly when the Tribunal has heard all the evidence. And the Tribunal heard the Appellant allege that the entire case against her was a deliberate fabrication by the employers, including planting a look alike in the restaurant to deceive the investigators into believing that it was her. The Tribunal thought that was a ludicrous and baseless suggestion and it is not hard to see why.
10. Irrespective of those considerations it seems to us that in a business of this nature, scrupulous adherence to cash handling procedures is of the essence of the integrity of the Respondents business. If they cannot rely on their employees to handle cash precisely to the letter, they are opening themselves up to all kinds of problems. If the person who has not complied and cannot give an explanation for non-compliance is an assistant manager, it seems to us well within the ambit of reasonable responses to what was held to have happened to have dismissed her.
11. So for all those reasons we conclude that there is no reasonable arguable point of law that arises out of the Tribunal's decision and we dismiss the appeal.