ACAS for unfair dismissal query?

[lacuna bless]

An ex-employee colleague of mine was dismissed last May for incapability to do their job. They had been employed for just under a year and had written warnings. They have been to the CAB but we have heard nothing since and now they are seeing ACAS for unfair dismissal. Is anything likely to come of this? The employee had been given a contract of employment but had not signed it.

[buildersmate]

To be able to potentially claim for Unfair Dismissal, your colleague needed to have a minimum of 12 months service. The exception is if the dismissal was for one of the 'automatically unfair' reasons. There are several of these, the most often cited being dismissal for reasons of pregnancy or TU membership. Given that your colleague was dismissed for capability, unless it involved a reason above, it is most unlikely the person has a case. The CAB should have quickly been able to advise the person of this though. The signing of the employment contract or not doesn't change anything. The person should have been given notice of dismissal - one week or longer if the (unsigned) employment contract indicates a longer period of notice.

[Fiszi]

I'm going through something similar at the moment and lost my job at about the same time. The best thing you can do is go to a solicitor who works with Employment law and most will give you free advise. Only problem is you have to do it within a certain amount of time. Mine had to be submitted for a tribunal this month and was only allowed this long because I went through the companies grievance procedure.

[horsestache1]

As buildersmate says, there is not a lot your friend can do, as they had not been employed for a year, and during this time they had also received written warnings, so were given the operturnity to change. The exception to this would be if your friend was/is suffering from a disability, that prevented them from carrying out the job. This should have been assesed at interview though!

[EverClean]

ACAS are a concilliation service o their remit is to settle this with the employer - not to advise to go to court for unfair dismissal. With capabiity at work there is usually very clear guidlines and if there were written warnings handed out in the past then these should state exactly how this individual is expected to improve, how the company will help them do this and what timescales he/she has to make these improvements in.

If hese are not followed then there may be a case.

[themas]

With the exceptions indicated (such as disability and pregnancy) there can be no claim for unfair dismissal if the employment lasted less than 12 months. It is futile to pursue it. ACAS should advise them of this (& the CAB should have done). I'm surprised they are seeing ACAS - this is normally done on their helpline.

[lacuna bless]

Thanks very much all.

[Cennet]

Even if your friend wanted to submit a claim for unfair dismissal, he is out of time by now - he had 3 calendar months from the date of his dismissal to submit a claim to the Employment Tirbunal. Tell him to save a lot of heartache and grief and move on,as they say. No good will come of him putting in a claim - he might even be hit with costs if he perserveres