Glossary · UK
What is Wrongful Dismissal?
A breach-of-contract claim, distinct from unfair dismissal, that arises when an employer ends employment without giving the notice, or following the process, required by the employment contract.
Full Definition
Wrongful dismissal is a contractual claim, not a statutory one, and turns purely on whether the employer breached the terms of the employment contract when it ended the employment -- most commonly by dismissing the employee without giving the contractual or statutory minimum notice period they were entitled to (a "payment in lieu of notice" clause, if present, can allow the employer to do this lawfully). Because it is a breach-of-contract claim, wrongful dismissal has no minimum length-of-service requirement, unlike most unfair dismissal claims, and can be brought in either an employment tribunal (subject to a compensation cap) or the ordinary civil courts (no cap, but higher legal costs risk). Damages are usually limited to the pay and contractual benefits the employee would have received during the notice period they should have been given, minus anything they are able to earn from other work during that time (the duty to mitigate loss); unlike unfair dismissal, no basic award or compensation for injury to feelings is available. A dismissal can be wrongful without being unfair (for example, an employee with less than two years' service sacked without notice for a fair reason, who has no unfair dismissal claim but can still claim the notice pay they were contractually owed), and can be unfair without being wrongful (for example, a dismissal with full contractual notice paid, but following an unfair investigation process).