Mutual Trust and Confidence Employee contributed to own dismissal by his unreasonable and indefensible behaviour

In this case (Structured Finance Management (Ireland) Limited and Vadym Kakinin) (ADJ0000-155-A) the employee appealed a previous finding of the WRC that he had not been unfairly dismissed to the Labour Court who overturned the decision of the Adjudicator but found that the complainant contributed 70% to his own dismissal.The Court found that it was not open to the appeals party in this case to decide that the Complainant would be dismissed should he reject an offer of mediation and that such a serious consequence should have been outlined in advance to the Complainant and should have been linked to the disciplinary sanction. It found that this did not happen and that it was a “failure of natural justice that cannot be easily overcome”.However the Labour Court went on to say that “……the decision to dismiss do not stand in isolation of other events that had taken place in the employment over many years involving the Complainant. The Court finds that the Complainant had become unmanageable and was increasingly occupying management time and resources addressing unfounded and unsubstantiated accusations against other employees and members of management. This behaviour was having a severe adverse impact on the other members of staff and on the operation of the business. Accordingly an ongoing relationship between the Complainant and the Respondent was at best highly unlikely to succeed. The Court finds that the bond of trust between the employer and employee had been fractured if not completely broken“.It found that “the decision to dismiss and the manner in which it was taken cannot but be considered an unfair dismissal” but that “the Complainant contributed significantly to this outcome through his unreasonable and indefensible behaviour towards his colleagues and towards management” Ultimately the Court considered that “the bond of trust between the Complainant and the Respondent is so fractured that it would be futile to restore the Complainant to his previous position or to employment with the Respondent” but also that the dismissal had had a severe financial impact on the Complainant and he deserved to be compensated for the adverse impact caused by his dismissal.An award of one year’s salary by reduced by 70% (deemed to be the level of contribution by the complainant to his own dismissal).