The Claimant was a level 3 rope access technician working on the East Brae platform in the North Sea. He was dismissed for breach of the Golden Rules of Compliance and the Respondent’s working at height procedure after a disciplinary hearing. It became apparent, during the course of the investigation that the Claimant had been using an earlier version of the online TMS system which was operated by the Respondent in which all their procedures were available. It was accepted during the appeal process that the Claimant did not have access to the Respondent’s TMS system. However, it was found that the annual issue of various method statements had been sent to the Claimant and his appeal was dismissed. He brought a claim of unfair dismissal to the ET which was dismissed. The Claimant appealed to the EAT on 2 grounds.

The EAT dismissed the appeal on both grounds. First, there was nothing contained within the paragraphs relied upon by the Claimant from which one might legitimately draw the inference that the ET substituted its own views for those of the Respondent. The EAT also rejected the Claimant's claim of procedural failures which claimed a lack of fair notice / effective participation at the appeal stage.