{"id":398203,"date":"2025-09-04T20:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T20:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/398203\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T20:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T20:58:09","slug":"calling-boss-a-dickhead-was-not-a-sackable-offence-tribunal-rules-employment-tribunals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/398203\/","title":{"rendered":"Calling boss a dickhead was not a sackable offence, tribunal rules | Employment tribunals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Managers and supervisors brace yourselves: calling the boss a dickhead is not necessarily a sackable offence, a tribunal has ruled.<\/p>\n

The ruling came in the case of an office manager who was sacked on the spot when \u2013 during a row \u2013 she called her manager and another director dickheads.<\/p>\n

Kerrie Herbert has been awarded almost \u00a330,000 in compensation and legal costs after an employment tribunal found she had been unfairly dismissed.<\/p>\n

The employment judge Sonia Boyes ruled that the scaffolding and brickwork company she worked for had not \u201cacted reasonably in all the circumstances in treating [her] conduct as a sufficient reason to dismiss her\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe made a one-off comment to her line manager about him and a director of the business,\u201d Boyes said. \u201cThe comment was made during a heated meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhilst her comment was not acceptable, there is no suggestion that she had made such comments previously. Further \u2026 this one-off comment did not amount to gross misconduct or misconduct so serious to justify summary dismissal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hearing in Cambridge was told Herbert started her \u00a340,000-a-year role at the Northampton<\/a> firm Main Group Services in October 2018. The business was run by Thomas Swannell and his wife, Anna.<\/p>\n

The tribunal heard that in May 2022 the office manager had found documents in her boss\u2019s desk about the costs of employing her, and became upset as she believed he was going to let her go.<\/p>\n

When Swannell then raised issues about her performance, she began crying, the hearing was told.<\/p>\n

She told the tribunal that she said: \u201cIf it was anyone else in this position they would have walked years ago due to the goings-on in the office, but it is only because of you two dickheads that I stayed.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said Swannell retorted: \u201cDon\u2019t call me a fucking dickhead or my wife. That\u2019s it, you\u2019re sacked. Pack your kit and fuck off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herbert said she asked if he was really firing her and he answered: \u201cYes I have, now fuck off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The office manager then sued the firm for unfair dismissal.<\/p>\n

The hearing was told that under the terms of her contract, she could be fired for \u201cthe provocative use of insulting or abusive language\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, this required she be given a prior warning. Only more serious breaches such as \u201cthreatening and intimidating language\u201d would be gross misconduct and warrant summary dismissal.<\/p>\n

Boyes found that Herbert was summarily fired because of her use of the word \u201cdickheads\u201d and ruled that the company had failed to follow proper disciplinary procedures.<\/p>\n

She concluded that calling her bosses dickheads was not sufficient to fire Herbert and ordered the firm to pay \u00a315,042.81 in compensation.<\/p>\n

In her latest judgment she also ruled it had to pay \u00a314,087 towards her legal fees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Managers and supervisors brace yourselves: calling the boss a dickhead is not necessarily a sackable offence, a tribunal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-398203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115148036893840272","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}