Ms H Holdsworth v West and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry — 2020

Ms Holdsworth started work with the respondent on 30 September 2019 as a Business Advisor. The tribunal accepted that her father was seriously ill and disabled within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010, and that the respondent knew this. After an initially positive review in November 2019, Mr Tansey decided on 10 December 2019 to extend probation by three months because he had concerns about her performance. On 12 and 13 December 2019 the claimant emailed about a suspected norovirus risk in the office and asked whether she could work from home; the tribunal found that she was seeking permission to work from home after being told to be more visible in the Bradford office.

The respondent ended her employment on 17 December 2019 for not reaching performance standards. The tribunal found that the reason for dismissal was not the claimant's association with her disabled father. It accepted that Mr Tansey regarded the emails as unprofessional and that the decision was driven by perceived performance and conduct issues and by a breakdown in the working relationship between the claimant and her line manager. The tribunal said there was no credible evidence that the claimant's father's terminal illness played any part in the decision. It added that, if the matter had been an unfair dismissal claim, dismissal would probably have been found substantively and procedurally unfair because there was no warning, discussion or opportunity to answer the concerns, but no unfair dismissal claim was before it.

On the section 15 claim, the tribunal accepted that the claimant's working from home on 13 December 2019 arose in consequence of her father's disability. It nevertheless found that she was not dismissed because she worked from home and that the wording of section 15 did not permit associative discrimination on these facts. The tribunal therefore dismissed both disability discrimination claims. The claims for unauthorised deduction from wages and breach of contract were withdrawn and were recorded as dismissed upon withdrawal; no monetary award was made.