Polkey v AE Dayton Services Ltd
A failure to follow a fair procedure can make a dismissal unfair, even if following the procedure would have made no difference, although compensation may be reduced to reflect that.
Facts
Mr Polkey was one of four van drivers employed by a company, which decided to make three of them redundant. He was called into the office and told without warning that he was being made redundant, and was sent home immediately. There had been no consultation. The tribunal held that the dismissal was fair, because consultation would have made no difference to the outcome, applying the approach in British Labour Pump Co Ltd v Byrne.
Legal principle
The House of Lords allowed Mr Polkey's appeal. Lord Mackay LC said that the question was whether the employer had acted reasonably in treating redundancy as a sufficient reason for dismissal, and that an employer who fails to consult or warn the employee will not normally act reasonably, unless the employer could reasonably have concluded at the time that consultation would be utterly useless. The question of whether the procedure would have made a difference was relevant to compensation, not to fairness. Compensation could be reduced to reflect the chance that the employee would have been dismissed anyway, known as a Polkey reduction.
Related cases on unfair dismissal
- Abernethy v Mott, Hay and Anderson [1974] ICR 323
- British Home Stores Ltd v Burchell [1980] ICR 303
- Iceland Frozen Foods Ltd v Jones [1983] ICR 17
- Kuzel v Roche Products Ltd [2008] EWCA Civ 380, [2008] ICR 799
- Post Office v Foley; HSBC Bank plc v Madden [2000] ICR 1283
- Royal Mail Group Ltd v Jhuti [2019] UKSC 55, [2020] ICR 731
- Sainsbury's Supermarkets Ltd v Hitt [2002] EWCA Civ 1588, [2003] ICR 111
- Taylor v OCS Group Ltd [2006] EWCA Civ 702, [2006] ICR 1602
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This summary is for study and revision and is not legal advice. Although our case summaries are checked for accuracy, we do not guarantee that they are free from errors or omissions. Always read the full judgment for the court's reasoning.
