No Damages For Failure To Follow Contractual Disciplinary Procedures

The Supreme Court has held that employees cannot recover damages for loss suffered as a result of a breach of a term in their employment contract as to the manner of their dismissal, unless that loss is independent of the dismissal. In the joined cases of Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital Foundation Trust and Botham v Ministry of Defence, the employees were dismissed for gross professional misconduct. Both employees alleged that their employer had breached the disciplinary procedure which was incorporated into their employment contract, and that had this procedure been correctly followed, they would not have been dismissed. They claimed that they had thereby suffered loss of reputation and future loss of future earnings because of the difficulty in getting work in the same profession. The employees sought substantial damages for loss of their future employment prospects on the basis that they would not have been dismissed if their employer had not breached the contractual disciplinary procedure.

Following Johnson v Unisys Ltd (2001), the Supreme Court ruled that the employees could not bring a...