In a recent case that supported the employer the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) highlighted the fact that tribunals must not substitute its own judgement for that of the employer when determining whether a dismissal is unfair or not.

This particular case concerned an administrative worker at a community special school who was dismissed after intervening when staff had to restrain children who were being disruptive.

The original tribunal decided that no reasonable employer would have acted in such a way, and ruled that the dismissal was therefore unfair.

On appeal by the school the EAT ruled that the original tribunal had substituted its own judgement on what it would have done about the employee’s intervention, and this was beyond its legal remit to do.

The employer was a special school that faced unique problems, and its staff had received extra training in how to handle troublesome children, however, the admin worker had not been given this training.   As such, the school was in a better position than the Tribunal and therefore entitled to take the view that the worker’s behaviour was inappropriate and could have made the situation worse.   The schools appeal was therefore successful