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Claimants should not be awarded damages for breach of a contractual disciplinary procedure if the breach arises in connection with the dismissal itself, the joined appeals of Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital and Botham (FC) v Ministry of Defence [2011] UKSC 58 have held. However, a breach of contract claim can proceed if the breach "precedes and is independent of" the dismissal.
In both cases the claimants alleged that their employers had not followed the correct contractual disciplinary procedures. The claimants said that, had they been followed correctly, they would not have been dismissed and would not have suffered damage to their reputations. A majority of the Supreme Court concluded that damages for breach of either express or implied contractual terms as to the manner of dismissals fell within the exclusion set out in Johnson v Unisys Ltd [2001] UKHL 13 and should not be allowed. To award such damages would undermine the distinction between contractual rights and unfair dismissal rights. The correct course of action is to claim unfair dismissal, where the statutory limits apply.
