Fieldfisher wins appeal over dismissal of associate accused of harassment

Fieldfisher has successfully appealed against a London tribunal ruling that it unfairly dismissed a senior associate over allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct towards female colleagues at work events.

The allegations involved repeatedly encouraging one female colleague, identified as C1, to cancel her Uber after a post-work social in January 2023 and return with him to the office, and following another female colleague, C2, to the toilets, putting his arm around her waist and waiting outside the toilet for her at a work party in July 2023.

In a judgment handed down on Tuesday, the Employment Appeal Tribunal overturned the ruling after finding that the original tribunal had assessed the evidence for itself instead of deciding whether Fieldfisher had acted reasonably.

Dismissal

Djamshid Rustambekov, who worked in Fieldfisher’s dispute resolution department, was dismissed in November 2023 after the firm upheld allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct.

A third allegation claimed Rustambekov had sexually assaulted C1 in an accessible toilet during the July work party. Fieldfisher said it was unable to reach a conclusion on that allegation, and it did not rely on it when dismissing him.

‍Tribunal error

An employment tribunal subsequently found that Rustambekov had been unfairly dismissed. Central to its decision was a finding that C1 had deliberately lied about part of the alleged accessible toilet incident after the venue’s written description of CCTV footage conflicted with her account of events. The tribunal did not view the footage itself.

Lord Fairley said the tribunal had improperly made its own finding that C1 had lied, based entirely on the venue’s description of the footage. The tribunal then used that finding to reassess her account of the separate January incident, describing it as the “negative pull of the lie”.

It concluded that Fieldfisher did not have reasonable grounds to uphold the January allegation.

Fresh hearing

Allowing the firm’s appeal, Lord Fairley said the tribunal had replaced Fieldfisher’s assessment of the evidence with its own. Its task was to decide whether the firm had conducted a reasonable investigation and had reasonable grounds for believing that misconduct had occurred.

The employment tribunal has set aside the unfair dismissal ruling and sent the case back to the employment tribunal to be decided again by a differently constituted tribunal.

Fieldfisher could not be reached for comment in time for publication.