Mr C Dibnah v RB Health Limited — 2020

Mr C Dibnah, a packaging technologist with narcolepsy and cataplexy, was dismissed on 11 June 2018 after the respondent's RB 2.0 restructure removed his stand-alone Veet packaging role and combined work across Veet and Scholl. The tribunal accepted that redundancy was the genuine reason for dismissal and that the claimant received a severance payment of £100,338.07 under the redundancy policy.

The unfair dismissal claim succeeded because the tribunal found the consultation process was not genuine and meaningful at the earlier stage: the removal of the claimant's role and the allocation of the combined Veet/Scholl role to Mr Athey had already been decided before consultation began, so the claimant had no real opportunity to make representations about retaining the role. However, the tribunal applied Polkey and held that, even if consultation had been fair, the claimant would have been fairly dismissed anyway and his employment would not have been extended beyond the actual termination date.

The direct discrimination claims had been withdrawn, and the remaining disability discrimination complaints failed. The tribunal found no proven link between the claimant's disability or medication and the performance, communication, attitude or timeliness concerns relied on by the respondent; occupational health had not recommended changing the performance standards, and the adjustments already in place included working restrictions, flexible hours, a sleep room and a fire-evacuation buddy system. It held that the informal PIP, feedback requests, annual performance review and salary decision were not shown to be because of disability or arising from it, and that the 18 September 2017 fire-drill incident was an isolated breakdown in an otherwise reasonable evacuation arrangement.

The harassment and victimisation complaints also failed. The tribunal did not accept that Ms Sagona told the claimant to consider whether he should remain in the organisation, did not accept that Mr Bobkov said the respondent could "get rid of" him, and found that the hotel foyer discussion and the follow-up investigation letter were about performance and safety rather than unwanted conduct related to disability or detriments because of a protected act. It also said, in the alternative, that the pre-dismissal discrimination complaints were out of time and would not have been extended, although the extracted text contains an apparent inconsistency in the dates used in that limitation analysis.