Mrs C May v Symmetric Systems Limited — 2020

Mrs C May was employed by Symmetric Systems Limited as an operations and support manager for about four and a half years. She was dismissed with effect from 14 January 2020 while on maternity leave, on alleged redundancy grounds. The tribunal found that redundancy was the reason for dismissal, not pregnancy or maternity, because the respondent had to consider redundancies after the PPI market downturn and August 2019 deadline, only one of the former four managers remained, and the claimant had been a valued employee who would likely have returned to her role or a similar one absent the redundancy situation.

The tribunal dismissed the pregnancy/maternity discrimination claim, the automatic unfair dismissal claim, the reg.10 MPL Regulations claim, and the victimisation claim. On reg.10, it held that the only remaining managerial role was Ms Piper's and was not available, while the other remaining roles were administrative, on National Living Wage terms, and not suitable alternative employment. On victimisation, the tribunal applied the Shamoon and Derbyshire approach to detriment and accepted that Mr Smart's insurance response was coloured by his view that the claimant had reneged on the appeal, but found no detriment because the claimant had accepted she had unintentionally misled the insurer and any honest response would likely have produced the same outcome.

The ordinary unfair dismissal claim succeeded because the dismissal procedure was not fair. The tribunal found there had not been adequate and meaningful consultation, the claimant had not been shown the matrix or scoring criteria, had no opportunity to challenge the selection exercise or discuss alternatives, and the pool was too broad and appeared to have been created for form rather than substance. It also held that the appeal did not cure the defects because it was not a re-hearing and did not address the procedural failings. Applying Polkey and Software 2000 Ltd v Andrews, the tribunal reduced any future award by 60%, and it listed a separate remedy hearing, so no monetary award was made in this judgment.