Round #979
12 May 2026, 13:38· hr-law· gpt-4.1· r13-clean-hints
- Complexity
- band 1
- ZP / UO / OBS
- 6 / 9 / 3
- Journey weight
- 1058
- Lightshift ΔL
- +0.08
Prompt
An employee with 20 months' service was dismissed for redundancy. They are claiming unfair dismissal. Do they have a valid claim?
Zero-point index (what the engine surfaced)
ZPI-ZPI-0008 | 2026-05-12T13:38:44Z
An employee with 20 months' service was dismissed for redundancy. They are claiming unfair dismissal. Do they have a valid claim?
ZERO POINT — 6 entries (structural invariants)
● hsl(89.73, 100%, 50%) band of reasonable responses [contract]
● hsl(203.07, 100%, 50%) reason for dismissal [contract]
● hsl(77.05, 100%, 50%) effective date of termination [contract]
● hsl(142.90, 100%, 42%) selection criteria [contract]
● hsl(124.95, 100%, 42%) individual consultation [contract]
● hsl(69.11, 100%, 42%) statutory redundancy pay [contract]
UNOBSERVED — 9 entries (implied truths)
○ hsl(222.00, 100%, 50%) statutory minimum notice [feature]
○ hsl(223.00, 100%, 50%) contractual notice [feature]
○ hsl(193.00, 100%, 50%) qualifying period [feature]
○ hsl(195.75, 100%, 42%) Write dismissal letter [function]
○ hsl(251.00, 100%, 42%) selection pool [feature]
○ hsl(256.00, 100%, 33%) suitable alternative employment [feature]
○ hsl(253.00, 100%, 33%) collective consultation [feature]
○ hsl(213.75, 100%, 25%) Define redundancy selection pool [function]
○ hsl(218.25, 100%, 25%) Issue at-risk notification [function]
OBSERVED — 3 entries (explicit in request)
◉ hsl(180.00, 100%, 50%) employee [feature]
◉ hsl(212.00, 100%, 33%) unfair dismissal [feature]
◉ hsl(250.00, 100%, 33%) redundancy [feature]
COMPLEXITY │ 18 entries │ spread: 76° │ band: MEDIUM
Baseline response (no ZPI)
Based on UK employment law (as of June 2024):
**No, the employee does not have a valid claim for unfair dismissal based on length of service.**
**Reason:**
To claim ordinary unfair dismissal, an employee must have at least **2 years' continuous service** with their employer at the date of dismissal (Employment Rights Act 1996, s.108). The employee in your scenario has **20 months' service** (which is less than 2 years).
**Exceptions:**
There are some exceptions where the 2-year qualifying period does not apply (e.g., dismissals for reasons related to discrimination, whistleblowing, asserting statutory rights, etc.), but redundancy is not one of these exceptions.
**Conclusion:**
Unless the employee can show their dismissal falls under one of the exceptions to the qualifying period, **they do not have the right to claim ordinary unfair dismissal** after 20 months' service.
**Note:**
They may still be entitled to a redundancy payment (if they have at least 2 years' service) and notice pay, but not to claim unfair dismissal in this scenario.
Enhanced response (with ZPI)
No, because employees need at least two years’ continuous service to claim unfair dismissal for redundancy, and 20 months is less than two years.
Grader chain
Each grader reads the same baseline + enhanced pair and casts an independent verdict. Disagreement is the framework's own signal — not noise to be averaged away.
V1samba/Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct
BetterV4qwen2.5-coder-3b-instruct
BetterV5cerebras/qwen-3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507
WorseV7qwen2.5-coder-7b-instruct
SameV8openai/gpt-4.1
WorseV9anthropic/claude-opus-4-7
BetterV12openai/gpt-4o
WorseComments
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