In the case of Hope v British Medical Association Mr Hope brought numerous grievances against senior managers. These were concerned with, amongst other matters, the failure of senior managers to include him in meetings which he thought he should be attending. Management considered that decisions as to who should attend were a matter for them.

The grievances could not be resolved at the informal stage, in part because Mr Hope wished to discuss his grievances informally with his line manager who had no authority to resolve concerns about more senior managers. However, the claimant refused to progress any of the grievances to the formal stage, instead seeking to retain the ability to do so, and neither did he withdraw the grievances.

A grievance hearing was fixed but Mr Hope refused to attend despite being informed that attendance was considered to be a reasonable instruction. The grievance hearing proceeded, and the grievances were not upheld. The BMA considered Mr Hope’s conduct to amount to gross misconduct in that he had brought numerous vexatious and frivolous grievances and had refused to comply with a reasonable management instruction to attend the meeting. He was dismissed.

The ET found that his dismissal was fair. He appealed. The principal ground of appeal was that the ET had erred in failing to consider whether the conduct relied upon was capable of amounting to gross misconduct in the contractual sense and that the ET’s conclusions were perverse.

The EAT upheld the reasoning of the ET. It held that in these cases, gross misconduct was in reality a contractual matter, although would have some bearing as to whether or not the outcome was reasonable. As notice had been paid, there was no contractual element to this case and therefore it was simply down to assess whether or not Mr Hope’s behaviour was sufficiently serious to warrant a dismissal, which the EAT held it was.