El-Megrisi v Azad University (IR) in Oxford (2009) EAT
Compensatory Awards; Protected Disclosures and Unfair Dismissal
Some claimants make claims for not very obvious reasons. We are accustomed to ex-employees seeking monetary compensation but we also see a few who take a claim as "a matter of principle", and this was such a case. In fact, she won her case and appealed the decision for no monetary gain.
The claimant was an Academic Registrar at an offshoot of an Iranian University. She made protected disclosures (mainly about the immigration status of some members of staff and students) and was dismissed. She received compensation under the "ordinary" unfair dismissal headings but pursued her claim to the EAT on the grounds that the tribunal should have also found the dismissal unfair under the protected disclosures heading.
Monetarily it made little difference to the compensation that the decision been made only on the "normal" unfair dismissal heading - she got a job shortly after dismissal and had received a 50% uplift. So, was there value in pursuing a claim to the higher court given that she could not receive any additional compensation? The EAT said yes, and the following quotation might be useful for representatives to keep in mind:
"We asked the Appellant what was the advantage to her of pursuing this aspect of the appeal. She said that it could be of practical importance to her to have a finding made not simply that she had been unfairly dismissed for “being a nuisance” but that the reason why she had been perceived as a nuisance by her previous employer was that she had raised matters of concern about what, if they were established, would be serious irregularities. We accept that that is indeed a matter of potential practical value. In any event, it seems to us that the Appellant is entitled as a matter of right to have the totality of her claim adjudicated. We do not rule out that there may be exceptional cases where for some particular reason it is an abuse for a claimant to pursue an aspect of a claim which can have no conceivable benefit for him or her, but this is not a case of that kind." (para 22)
Whistleblowing unfair dismissal
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