Elizabeth Long v CH & Company Ltd and 1 other — 2021

Ms Long was dismissed in a large Covid-related redundancy exercise. The tribunal resolved a dispute about the employing entity by finding, on the reality of the arrangements and the documents, that she had moved with Mr Richards to CH & Company Ltd in early 2020, although that point did not affect the outcome. The evidence was heard from Mr Richards, Mr Fredrickson and Ms Hutchings, together with Ms Long, and the tribunal accepted that the pandemic had caused a severe reduction in the business.

The tribunal held that this was a redundancy situation within s.139 ERA 1996. Ms Long worked as a PA in Bristol, and after the redundancies there was no PA role remaining there. The tribunal found that there were no alternative vacancies anywhere in the group, and that the only way Ms Long could have stayed in employment would have been if Ms Eldon, the remaining PA, had been dismissed instead. The tribunal said it was reasonable to treat Ms Eldon as being in a different role because she supported the CEO and also carried additional office-management and board-related responsibilities.

On procedure, the tribunal accepted that Ms Long was missed off an initial communication and that there had been some errors in the process, but found that she suffered no detriment from them. It held that a pool of one for the Bristol role was reasonable, that a wider pool of all three PAs was not required, and that the employer was not obliged to bump Ms Eldon out of her role. The tribunal also noted that if unfairness had been established, a Polkey reduction of 100% would have applied because dismissal would inevitably have followed in any fair process.

The claim was therefore dismissed as a fair redundancy dismissal. The tribunal also recorded that notice and redundancy payment questions existed, but treated those as consequences of the dismissal rather than matters affecting the fairness finding. No monetary award was made.