Tweet
Hello,
I'm trying to support my mother who has been summarily dismissed for gross misconduct after >10 years of exemplary service. She is also the primary carer of my father who has a severe disability. Their financial situation is pretty bad, and so I am planning to support them rather than pay for a lawyer. I'm aware that household insurance may cover legal costs; however, even pursuing this is time consuming and from what I've read, the cover can be patchy at the best of times.
I tend to be reasonably good at learning things, having graduated with 85% (10% above a 1st) from a top university. I have invested a huge amount of time in learning about employment law over the past month (perhaps > 100 hours). The primary source has been the ACAS website and employment law text books. However, from what I can see employment law is extremely complicated with an almost unlimited depth at almost every point.
From what I've read and understand, even if we don't get procedures & process perfect, it's not the end of the world because the result of a tribunal primarily comes down to the substance of the case. Therefore, as I understand it, my primary effort should be focused on whether the substance constitutes unfair dismissal. My question is about the substance, and what claim I should be putting forward going into the tribunal.
From what I can see, the maximum cap for unfair dismissal is relatively low (around 1 year's salary) which does not come close to covering the damage that has been done to my mother and her reputation, and would likely leave them in a critical state financially in ~1 year. Also, there are prior examples of unfair dismissal at the same organisation in which the payouts have been much larger than this and have been made prior to tribunal; however, this was under different leadership at the organisation.
If we really dig into the substance of her dismissal, it looks like a clear case of her superior (who happens to be the head of the organisation) attempting to cover up his own misconduct. I think this would be very clear to any judge viewing the evidence. The reason why this hasn't been resolved prior to tribunal is because it's a very small organisation and there is almost no escalation path.
So, my question is really about what claim I should put in. Do we just go for unfair dismissal and hope for the maximum, or should we go for discrimination? How does this work, can we put claims in for multiple and cover them all in the same tribunal? Is there risk in covering more than one? If we just go for unfair dismissal, does it not automatically expand to the others if this is where the evidence points?
My issue is that I don't understand some of the "boxes" that lawyers work within/without on a daily basis, and so my concern is that I will frame the entire claim in such a way as to get a sub-optimal result regardless of the substance.
I'm not going to bother asking whether I should bite the bullet and pay for an employment layer's advice because I'm sure you will say "yes of course". Instead, I'm hoping for the free advice of someone who is already an employment layer or has experience in this.
Kindest regards,
Concerned Son
I'm trying to support my mother who has been summarily dismissed for gross misconduct after >10 years of exemplary service. She is also the primary carer of my father who has a severe disability. Their financial situation is pretty bad, and so I am planning to support them rather than pay for a lawyer. I'm aware that household insurance may cover legal costs; however, even pursuing this is time consuming and from what I've read, the cover can be patchy at the best of times.
I tend to be reasonably good at learning things, having graduated with 85% (10% above a 1st) from a top university. I have invested a huge amount of time in learning about employment law over the past month (perhaps > 100 hours). The primary source has been the ACAS website and employment law text books. However, from what I can see employment law is extremely complicated with an almost unlimited depth at almost every point.
From what I've read and understand, even if we don't get procedures & process perfect, it's not the end of the world because the result of a tribunal primarily comes down to the substance of the case. Therefore, as I understand it, my primary effort should be focused on whether the substance constitutes unfair dismissal. My question is about the substance, and what claim I should be putting forward going into the tribunal.
From what I can see, the maximum cap for unfair dismissal is relatively low (around 1 year's salary) which does not come close to covering the damage that has been done to my mother and her reputation, and would likely leave them in a critical state financially in ~1 year. Also, there are prior examples of unfair dismissal at the same organisation in which the payouts have been much larger than this and have been made prior to tribunal; however, this was under different leadership at the organisation.
If we really dig into the substance of her dismissal, it looks like a clear case of her superior (who happens to be the head of the organisation) attempting to cover up his own misconduct. I think this would be very clear to any judge viewing the evidence. The reason why this hasn't been resolved prior to tribunal is because it's a very small organisation and there is almost no escalation path.
So, my question is really about what claim I should put in. Do we just go for unfair dismissal and hope for the maximum, or should we go for discrimination? How does this work, can we put claims in for multiple and cover them all in the same tribunal? Is there risk in covering more than one? If we just go for unfair dismissal, does it not automatically expand to the others if this is where the evidence points?
My issue is that I don't understand some of the "boxes" that lawyers work within/without on a daily basis, and so my concern is that I will frame the entire claim in such a way as to get a sub-optimal result regardless of the substance.
I'm not going to bother asking whether I should bite the bullet and pay for an employment layer's advice because I'm sure you will say "yes of course". Instead, I'm hoping for the free advice of someone who is already an employment layer or has experience in this.
Kindest regards,
Concerned Son
