Mr K Bright v RSPCA North Somerset Branch PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2022

The claimant brought claims for protected disclosure detriment under s.47B ERA 1996, automatic unfair dismissal under s.103A ERA 1996, reasonable adjustments and harassment on the ground of disability, unpaid annual leave, and breach of contract for expenses. The respondent conceded that the claimant was disabled by reason of depression and anxiety. The tribunal also recorded that the annual leave issue was resolved during the hearing when the respondent accepted that three hours were owed and said it would pay £355.76, after which the claimant withdrew that claim.

On the whistleblowing case, the tribunal applied the statutory approach to protected disclosures, referring to authorities including Kilraine, Blackbay, Chesterton Global, Fecitt and Jhuti. It held that the claimant's 29 January 2020 letter was not capable of being a protected disclosure because it post-dated the alleged detriments and did not identify a breach of legal obligation with sufficient factual content. The alleged oral disclosure at the grievance meeting on 26 October 2019 was also rejected: the tribunal treated it as a broad allegation made in the course of a dispute about the claimant's own treatment, not a disclosure of information that the claimant reasonably believed was in the public interest. The detriment claim and the s.103A automatic unfair dismissal claim therefore failed.

The disability discrimination claims were also dismissed. On reasonable adjustments, the tribunal held that the claimant had not established a relevant PCP of requiring a return to full hours after sickness in the way pleaded, and in any event the duty was not triggered on the facts because he had not indicated that he was fit and wishing to return on the basis suggested, and at the return-to-work meeting he said no adjustments were needed. On harassment, the tribunal found that the 7 September 2019 email from Mrs Hinton was ill-judged in its wording, but in context it concerned the claimant's sick note, availability, and working hours rather than his disability. The separate allegation that the respondent emailed him while he was off sick saying he needed to return to work was not made out because the emails were found to ask for confirmation of fitness for work and availability, not to require a return regardless of his condition.

The breach of contract claim for expenses failed because the claimant produced no evidence that he had submitted reimbursable expenses with receipts and remained unpaid. The respondent's counterclaim for alleged overpayment of annual leave also failed because it adduced no evidence of overpayment. The final outcome recorded by the judgment was that the withdrawn annual leave claim was dismissed on withdrawal, and the remaining substantive claims were dismissed.