Mrs Stella Hanson v The Secretary of State for Justice — 2020

The liability judgment had already found the Claimant was constructively unfairly dismissed. At the remedy hearing the Claimant confirmed she did not seek reinstatement or re-engagement and pursued compensation only. The Tribunal incorporated its earlier liability findings and considered the basic award, compensatory award, mitigation, future loss, pension loss, tax grossing up, and a requested uplift under section 207A TULR(C)A.

The Tribunal found the Claimant had not failed to mitigate her loss. It accepted that she had a reasonable explanation for not seeking work immediately after the effective date of termination, that she took reasonable steps to find work between July and November 2019, and that later events involving care for her parents and the Covid-19 restrictions did not establish an unreasonable failure to mitigate. It also found that, had she remained employed, she would more likely than not have moved to 50% part-time work from March 2020 because of caring responsibilities, but would not have given up work completely.

The Tribunal declined to apply a section 207A uplift, finding that it could not be assumed the ACAS Code applied to this constructive unfair dismissal claim and preferring the Respondent's submissions on that issue. It stated that, if wrong, it would have applied a 10% uplift, but that would not affect the result because the statutory cap limited the compensatory award. The final order was compensation of £46,713.24, made up of a £14,447 basic award and a capped compensatory award of £32,266.24.