Mr A MacMillan (counsel) For the v Respondent — 2024

Mr Manshausen was IMI Precision Engineering’s Divisional Chief Information Officer from 1 February 2018 until dismissal. Cancer was conceded to be a disability, and the tribunal accepted knowledge of disability from 9 June 2021. During the hearing, the reasonable adjustments and holiday pay complaints were withdrawn. The tribunal also applied the continuing-act and time-limit analysis so that pre-5 September 2022 allegations were treated as part of the same course of conduct, and said it would have extended time in any event.

On the complaints about changes to his role and team, the tribunal found the relevant IT structure changes had been made before Mr Manshausen’s absence and were subject to headcount-neutral approvals. It rejected the case that his direct reports had been permanently removed or that the IT department had been reduced because of his absence or later grievance. Most alleged exclusions from Digital Factories, Salesforce and Wipro meetings were found not to amount to actionable exclusion, either because his input was not required, he had been briefed, or the meetings predated the grievance.

The grievance of 24 May 2022 was a protected act. The tribunal found IMI’s refusal to respond to the 10 June 2022 DSAR was victimisation: the grievance referred to cancer and health, the response was driven by the grievance and the breakdown of settlement discussions, and adverse inferences were drawn from the evidence of Mr Burden and Ms Craner. It also upheld victimisation in relation to the later redundancy selection and dismissal, but rejected the remaining victimisation allegations.

The tribunal found that IMI had already been discussing Mr Manshausen as a “flight risk” and as exiting the business before the grievance, but it concluded that the redundancy exercise later carried out was a sham once the grievance and DSAR crystallised the breakdown in negotiations. The Korn Ferry discussions, the interim appointment of Martin Carroll and the later appointment of Paul Sigston supported the finding that the CIO role was not genuinely redundant and that the business had not shown a real cessation or diminution in the need for the work.

The direct disability discrimination and discrimination arising from disability complaints failed. The tribunal found that Mr Manshausen’s cancer, absence, phased return and medical appointments were not the reason for the impugned treatment. It found instead that the grievance was the catalyst for the later decisions. The grievance handling was found inadequate in places, but that did not itself establish direct discrimination or a s.15 claim, and the tribunal did not find the relevant decision-makers treated him because of disability or the identified “somethings”.

Unfair dismissal was upheld because the redundancy reason was not made out and the dismissal fell outside the band of reasonable responses. The tribunal recorded that the dismissal took effect on 15 September 2022, not 14 September 2022, and ordered a separate remedy hearing.