The Claimant was summarily dismissed after he was involved in a physical altercation with another bus driver. He brought claims of automatic unfair dismissed and ordinary unfair dismissal to the ET. The Claimant’s grounds of appeal against his dismissal included that he had not seen the CCTV recordings before the investigation meeting, there had been no official complaint from the other driver, and he had not been accompanied at the investigation meeting. Metroline’s appeal panel’s consideration of the case of another Metroline colleague who had been dismissed but then reinstated on appeal, in what the Claimant said was a similar situation. The ET found that the dismissal was unfair; the disciplinary hearing was flawed, in that, firstly, it did not rectify the flaws of the investigation by requesting witness statements or evidence or request CCTV footage amongst other things. Secondly, the appeal hearing did not rectify the flaws in the investigation or in the disciplinary hearing. Metroline appealed.

The EAT allowed the appeal. The ET erred in failing to apply the law in considering whether the process by which, and the decision reached by the employer was within the range of reasonable responses. In doing so, the ET erred in substituting its view for that of the employer.