Mr J Duxbury v University of Huddersfield FINAL HEARING Heard: BY CVP — 2021

The respondent introduced 2013 guidance requiring academic staff without a doctorate to study for and complete one. The claimant enrolled, his studies were suspended in 2015 when he was showing signs of work-related stress, and from 2017 he was disciplined for not re-enrolling. The tribunal accepted that he experienced stress-related symptoms between September 2018 and June 2019, but held that this did not amount to a disability under section 6 Equality Act 2010 because the substantial adverse effect had not lasted, and was not likely to last, 12 months. The disability-related complaints were therefore dismissed.

On indirect age discrimination, the tribunal found that the doctorate guidance was a provision, criterion or practice and that many academics would need to use personal, non-contractual time to complete a PhD. However, the claimant did not prove that employees over 50, as a group, were put at the pleaded disadvantage. The tribunal treated retirement date, future career benefit, and willingness to invest personal time as highly individual matters, and held that the evidence did not establish group disadvantage for the over-50s.

For unfair dismissal, the respondent accepted that the reason was conduct, but the tribunal held there were not reasonable grounds for the belief that the claimant's failure to enrol amounted to misconduct and that the investigation as a whole was inadequate. It found that the respondent had not properly investigated whether the doctoral requirement was contractual or whether the claimant needed personal time to complete it, and that the insistence on re-enrolment before discussing time allocation was unreasonable. The dismissal was held to be outside the band of reasonable responses, so the unfair dismissal complaint succeeded.