Case 1300435/2020 · Employment Tribunal

Mr A O’Donnell, Ms T O’Donnell and Mrs C O’Donnell v The SMART Actuator Company Limited (in liquidation) — 2021

Case reference: 1300435/2020
Decision date: 27 May 2021
Jurisdiction: England & Wales
Judge: Employment Judge Cookson
Venue: Birmingham
Panel members: Mrs Astill, Mrs Gill

Indexed: 22 May 2026

Parties

2 named

Claimant

Mr A O’Donnell, Ms T O’Donnell and Mrs C O’Donnell

Respondent

The SMART Actuator Company Limited (in liquidation)

Key findings

Tribunal's reasoning

The tribunal upheld Mr Antony O'Donnell's claim for unlawful deduction from wages, finding deductions in August and September 2019 and awarding unpaid gross wages of £956.17. His unfair dismissal claim under s94 ERA 1996 also succeeded; the tribunal found he was dismissed on 24 September 2019, but reduced compensation because it found he would have been dismissed by reason of redundancy on 27 August 2020 in any event. It awarded a basic award of £1,250.30 and a compensatory award including loss of statutory rights of £6,204.61, giving a total of £7,454.91. Mr O'Donnell's age discrimination claim under the Equality Act 2010 was dismissed.

Ms Tonya O'Donnell succeeded on direct disability discrimination under s13 EqA 2010 and harassment under s26 EqA 2010, and the tribunal also upheld her claim under s15 EqA 2010 that she was treated unfavourably because of something arising in consequence of her disability. Her claims for indirect disability discrimination and failure to make reasonable adjustments under ss19-21 EqA 2010 were dismissed. The tribunal awarded compensation for disability discrimination of £7,620.93 for lost earnings, £15,000 for injury to feelings, £2,735.34 interest and £5,000 aggravated damages, totalling £30,356.27.

Ms O'Donnell also succeeded on unlawful deductions from wages, with the tribunal finding deductions between 31 July and 5 September 2019 and awarding £764.07 gross unpaid wages. Her unfair dismissal claim succeeded; the tribunal found she was summarily dismissed on 5 September 2019, applied a 25% uplift for non-compliance with the ACAS Code of Practice on Discipline and Grievance, and reduced compensation because she would have been dismissed by reason of redundancy on 27 August 2020 in any event. It awarded a basic award of £446.53 and a compensatory award of £716.60, with a total of £1,163.13.

Mrs Christine O'Donnell's unlawful deduction from wages claim was dismissed. Her unfair dismissal claim succeeded, with the same redundancy finding on 27 August 2020 reducing compensation. The tribunal awarded a basic award of £1,562.92 and a compensatory award including loss of statutory rights of £7,668.28, giving a total of £9,231.20.

Claims and outcomes

12 findings recorded

This case has mixed outcomes under at least one legal claim type. A tribunal can uphold some allegations and dismiss others under the same legal head, so rows below may represent separate issues or allegation groups from the judgment.

Claim type	Issue or finding	Outcome	Protected characteristic	Award
Unlawful deduction from wages	Unlawful deduction from wages in August and September 2019; unpaid gross wages awarded were £956.17.	Upheld	—	£956
Unfair dismissal	Dismissed on 24 September 2019; compensation was reduced because the tribunal found he would have been dismissed by reason of redundancy on 27 August 2020 in any event. Basic award £1,250.30 and compensatory award £6,204.61.	Upheld	—	£7,455
Age discrimination	Age discrimination claim under the Equality Act 2010 was not upheld and was dismissed.	Dismissed	Age	—
Disability discrimination	Direct discrimination under s13 EqA 2010 was upheld; the tribunal also separately upheld harassment by reason of disability.	Upheld	Disability	—
Harassment	Harassment under s26 EqA 2010 was upheld by reason of disability; the disability discrimination compensation was awarded in aggregate rather than split by head of claim.	Upheld	Disability	—
Disability discrimination

Remedy

Monetary award

Total award: £49,926; across all upheld claims
Basic award: £3,260; statutory, unfair dismissal
Compensatory award: £28,931; compensatory remedy recorded

Legal tests applied

10 references

Official outcome judgment PDF

Gov.uk primary record

The official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.

Open official judgment PDF on gov.uk

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How we got this data

Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.

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