Boss too drunk to be punished

The current law is that if an employer fails to follow basic dismissal procedure any award for compensation is increased by at least 10% and can be increased by 50%. A tribunal can in exceptional cases refuse to increase the award. The Glasgow Employment Tribunal has given such an example in Foley v Galbraith. The employee was a Personal Assistant sacked without any warning or meetings. His boss employed him personally to do his washing, ironing, shopping and to pay his bills. . However his boss couldn't recall anything about the allegations of theft that he said caused dismissal as he was an alcoholic with severe physical disability. For this reason the Tribunal felt it unfair to punish the employer further. The P.A. got loss of earnings for 13 months in a total award of just under £14,000.