Suddenly losing your job can be a massive shock, especially in these tough times. It can leave you bewildered and wondering where to turn. And if you believe you lost your job unfairly, it can be even worse.
This blog aims to help.
One of the most important things you can do is to look into your legal rights to see if you have grounds to make a claim for compensation. I’ve set out below a few things to consider – based on the way in which you lost your job.
Employment law is pretty complicated, and a lot depends on your circumstances. But hopefully the snippets below will help get you started on learning what claims may be open to you.
If you would like more detailed advice, I would recommend speaking to a specialist employment law solicitor. Truth Legal has helped hundreds of people with claiming compensation and resolving their employment law issues.
But before we get into the legal stuff – an important message:
Try to find another job as soon as possible
This probably goes without saying! But it is worth mentioning here for a number of reasons.
Firstly, and most obviously, you will need an income of some kind to protect yourself and your livelihood.
Secondly, even if you have a strong case for one or more of the claims described below, they can all take time to complete – especially if the claim is disputed by your former employer. The last thing you want is to put yourself in a difficult financial situation in the meantime.
Lastly, there’s a legal reason. When you are making a claim for compensation, you have a duty to reduce the losses you’ve suffered as much as you reasonably can. In legal speak this is called ‘mitigating your losses’. Finding another job as soon as you can is a good way of doing this.
As an example, say you’ve lost your job, and you are claiming for months and months of the income that this has cost you. Your former employer might argue: ‘Why do we have to pay for all that? Why didn’t they find another job?’ And if you have not tried to find another job, and with no good reason, an Employment Tribunal might decide that you haven’t tried to reduce your losses as much as you could. If so, they will limit the amount of compensation you can claim.
What claims might I have?
The way in which you lost your job will affect the legal rights you have.
If you were fired…
You may be able to claim for unfair dismissal.
There are a few requirements, however:
- You must have been an employee.
- You must have been employed there for at least 2 years (continuously).
- The reason, or main reason, for your dismissal must be unfair.
If you are unsure whether you were an employee, some telltale signs are: that you had a contract of employment and that you paid PAYE tax from your wages.
For the reason behind your dismissal, some kinds of reason will be automatically unfair, whereas other reasons might be fair if your employer can justify them.
A few automatically unfair reasons are:
- Discrimination (more on this below)
- Because of pregnancy or childbirth
- ‘Whistleblowing’ – i.e. because you exposed some wrongdoing in your workplace
Some potentially fair reasons for dismissing you are:
- Your capability or qualifications
- Your conduct
- Redundancy (more on this below)
- That it would be illegal to keep you in your position
- ‘Some other substantial reason’ (which is a kind of catch-all)
If your former employer has given one of these potentially fair reasons for firing you, it will depend on your circumstances as to whether it was actually fair or not.
Unfortunately, unfair dismissal has too many complexities to fully cover here. If you think that you might have a possible unfair dismissal claim, you should discuss your situation with a specialist employment law solicitor.
It is also worth noting that, even if you haven’t been unfairly dismissed, you may have a claim for wrongful dismissal. This can arise when your employer has breached part of your employment contract when they fired you. Also, you don’t need to have worked for them for a continuous 2-year period in order to claim wrongful dismissal.
If you were made redundant…
Redundancy is a special form of dismissal. It should only be used as a reason by your employer if your role is no longer needed. This could be because the business, or your particular workplace, is closing down, or because there is a reduced need for employees doing your job.
If none of these are true, or you think you may have been picked for redundancy for unfair or discriminatory reasons, you may have grounds for an unfair dismissal claim.
If you were forced to leave your job…
To claim for unfair dismissal, you must have been dismissed by your employer. However, in situations where you felt it was impossible for you to remain in your job due to your employer’s conduct, you may be able to claim for constructive dismissal.
In order to claim constructive dismissal, your employer’s conduct must amount to a breach of your employment contract – something so fundamental to the contract that it has forced you to resign as a result. This could be, for example, refusing to pay you, or something more subtle like a complete breakdown of trust and confidence between you.
If you can prove constructive dismissal, it will allow you claim for unfair dismissal (even though you weren’t ‘dismissed’ in the literal sense). However, you will still need to meet the unfair dismissal requirements (mentioned above).
If you were discriminated against…
It’s possible for discrimination to be a factor in any of the ways of losing your job that are described above.
Discrimination is detrimental treatment because of a characteristic you have. It can be done directly (where you have been targeted because of that characteristic) or indirectly (where some action or policy of your employer has the effect of treating you worse than others who do not share that characteristic).
The characteristics which the law protects from discrimination are:
- Age
- Disability
- Gender reassignment
- Marital or civil partnership status
- Pregnancy or maternity
- Race
- Religious beliefs
- Sex
- Sexual orientation
If you think discrimination played a part in the loss of your job, try to collect and keep as much evidence as you can. Discrimination can be difficult to prove, as often it does not appear as clear actions or statements but as a pattern of more subtle behaviour.
However, if you can prove that you suffered discrimination, it will be an automatically unfair reason for the loss of your job and a serious breach of your rights under the Equality Act 2010.
Finding out more
Hopefully this blog has helped to point you in the right direction of what to look into. However, for detailed advice and help on your situation, you should speak to an employment law solicitor like Truth Legal.