Complying with a legal duty or restriction

It is a fair reason to dismiss an employee if continuing the employment would contravene a legal duty or restriction: in other words, where continued employment would break the law. Typical examples include drivers who lose their licence, where there is no suitable alternative employment, or employees who lose the right to work in the UK.

Where an employee is facing dismissal because he cannot legally do his job (e.g. a driver who loses his licence), the employer should look for alternative employment elsewhere in the organisation. However, failure to look for alternative employment before dismissing will not always make the dismissal unfair (Wincanton Group PLC v Gregory UKEAT/0011/12/LA). As always, it depends on the surrounding circumstances. In the Gregory case, for example, the dismissal was unfair because Wincanton misled Mr Gregory into thinking it was looking for other roles for him, when this was not true.