A Perthshire estate has been slammed by an employment tribunal for its unfair dismissal of a gardener.
The Lawers Estate at Comrie totally failed to follow any fair procedure under the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service code before dismissing Eric Hepburn, of Glen Artney.
The 52-year-old gardener was made redundant, but his dismissal was a failure “so gross, so unreasonable and so unfair” that the tribunal increased the compensation they ordered the estate to pay him by 25% to £2,807.50.
The tribunal sitting in Dundee heard that Mr Hepburn was a gardener at the estate whose registered office is in the Channel Islands from May 2010 until September last year, when his contract was terminated.
The estate failed to provide a range of documents requested by the tribunal on its procedure for redundancy or on Mr Hepburn’s employment record. This was in breach of an order, and the estate’s representative admitted that it was because the documents did not exist.
The estate employed three gardeners, including Mr Hepburn, and had two self-employed gardeners. One of the employed gardeners retired and his place on the payroll was taken by one of the self-employed gardeners.
Mr Hepburn felt he was being asked to carry extra work and responsibility and asked for better terms, including more pay.
He met Mrs S Bruce, the estate manager, on September 5 last year and a memo of that meeting explained that the estate could not afford to increase his pay.
Mr Hepburn felt he had become the head gardener but was not being rewarded as such, and he implied that he may look for another job.
Five days later he learned in a conversation with estate director Robert Gibbons that he was to be leaving, and that afternoon he received a dismissal letter, on the grounds that he had advised that he would be looking for another job. His employment was terminated with immediate effect, making him redundant.
On September 11 he went back to the estate to collect personal belongings and to try to discuss his situation, but he was asked to leave and told his possessions would be delivered to him.
The tribunal noted that no self-employed contractor had their gardening duties reduced when Mr Hepburn left, there had been no prior discussion about redundancies, no selection criteria and no lessening of the need for gardeners.
The tribunal concluded that Mr Hepburn was not redundant, but that his dismissal was, in the terms used by his representative, “a sham or facade”, partly because he tried to negotiate better terms.
A secondary factor concerned Mr Hepburn’s belief that he was being bullied and his continuation on the workforce would have caused the estate to deal with that issue and upset another employee.
The tribunal, chaired by Mr C Lucas, also noted that Mr Hepburn was not given the right of appeal.
Mr Hepburn’s lawyer, Professor Donald Nicolson of Strathclyde University Law Clinic, commented: “We are very pleased at the outcome of this case, in which we had to fight hard for justice.
“This was our first foray to the tribunal office in Dundee.”