The EAT determined that the tribunal focused on an incident that did not factor into the dismissal
The UK Employment Appeal Tribunal has set aside the employment tribunal’s decision on an unfair dismissal case involving a senior associate from global firm Fieldfisher LLP, reported the Law Society Gazette.
Fieldfisher had terminated dispute resolution senior associate Djamshid Rustambekov after a disciplinary process revealed that he had sexually harassed a colleague while conducting himself inappropriately towards another colleague. Rustambekov filed an unfair dismissal claim with the employment tribunal, which handed the legal win to him.
Fieldfisher appealed to the EAT, and tribunal president Douglas Fairley permitted the appeal after determining that the employment tribunal “relied upon evidence about an incident that formed no part of the reason for dismissal,” according to a statement by Fairley that was published by the Gazette.
Fairley wrote in his ruling that the employment tribunal was wrong to have superimposed its own conclusion about the complainant’s credibility over Fieldfisher’s with regard to one of the incidents. The EAT president called it an inappropriate step in reasoning, noting that the sexual assault accusation “ultimately formed no part of the reason for the dismissal,” per a snippet published by the Gazette.
Fairley said the employment tribunal did not “recognise the limits of its fact-finding role.” A tribunal, he said in a statement published by the Gazette, “must not substitute its own evaluation of the evidence that was before the decision-maker.”
“That, however, was exactly what the tribunal did in this case. That substitution led it to its erroneous conclusion…that the respondent did not have reasonable grounds to conclude that the claimant had sexually harassed [a colleague] in January 2023. Since that conclusion was a material part of to the tribunal’s reasons for concluding that the dismissal was unfair, its judgment to that effect must be set aside,” the EAT president wrote in his ruling, a snippet of which was published by the Gazette.
Fairley remitted the Fieldfisher LLP v Djamshid Rustambekov back to the employment tribunal for re-determination by a different set of decision-makers.
Of counsel Zac Sammour and Joseph Lavery acted for Fieldfisher on instruction by Lewis Silkin LLP. Tom Coghlin represented Rustambekov on instruction by Brahams Dutt Badrick French LLP.
