Elizabeth Chand v EE Ltd: [2026]

In this case, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) considered the treatment of composite reasons for dismissal in an unfair dismissal claim, and in particular whether an Employment Tribunal (“ET”) can uphold a dismissal on a narrower basis than that actually relied upon by the employer.

The Claimant worked as a Senior Customer Advisor for the Respondent. She was dismissed for gross misconduct following four separate incidents involving customer interactions, each of which the Respondent considered to amount to fraud. The Claimant accepted that she had been negligent in each instance but denied any fraudulent intent. She brought a claim for unfair dismissal.

The ET concluded that the Respondent had no reasonable grounds for a belief in fraud in relation to any of the four incidents. However, in relation to one incident, it found that the Claimant had committed an “egregious” breach capable of constituting gross misconduct in itself, even absent fraud, and dismissed the unfair dismissal claim on that basis.

The EAT allowed the Claimant’s appeal and substituted a finding of unfair dismissal, returning the case to the ET to determine remedy. The EAT decided that the ET had failed to recognise that, in a case of dismissal for conduct, it is necessary to consider the subjective question of what was, in fact, the principal reason for the dismissal i.e. what the decision-maker actually decided, not what they could have decided. The ET had made no finding that the fourth incident was the principal reason for dismissal. On the contrary, the ET’s own findings demonstrated that the dismissing manager had a composite reason for dismissal, treating all four incidents as fraud. Applying established legal principles, a reason cannot be treated as a sufficient reason for dismissal where a key part of it has not been established on reasonable grounds. Once the ET found there were no reasonable grounds for a belief in fraud, the only conclusion open to it was that the dismissal was unfair.

The decision is a useful reminder that where an employer’s reason for dismissal is composite in nature, the ET cannot find that the dismissal was fair by isolating a single element which it considers to have been established, if that element was not in fact the employer’s principal reason for dismissing the employee. Employers should ensure that, when disciplinary decisions are based on multiple allegations, clear records are kept of what the decision-maker considered to be the principal reason for dismissal, and that it is reasonable to conclude that each allegation forming part of that reason is supported by the available evidence, on the balance of probabilities.