What is the legal development?

Confirmation that employment tribunals will look back at previous warnings in assessing whether the final decision to dismiss was reasonable.

In a recent case it was argued that the final written warning was given in bad faith and, even though it was not appealed at the time, it remained unreliable.

The Court of Appeal accepted the argument and noted that the employment tribunal and the EAT, by not properly testing the reliability of the previous final warning, had taken inappropriate shortcuts to limit investigation and minimise delay in the court process.

What does this mean for employers?

If an employer wants to dismiss on the basis of previous disciplinary warnings, it needs to first ensure that those warnings were reliable, otherwise it could render the dismissal unfair. This is good reason to ensure that disciplinary processes are always properly carried out.