Mr H Luz Martins v Tech Gloves IT Limited — 2021

Employment Judge Joffe heard two automatic unfair dismissal claims brought by Mr H Luz Martins against Tech Gloves IT Limited. The claimant said that emails sent on 29 July 2020 about private health insurance were protected disclosures, and that he was dismissed because of them. He also advanced a separate claim under s.100(1)(e) ERA 1996 based on the requirement to work at client sites in London during the pandemic.

On the protected disclosure claim, the Tribunal accepted that the claimant believed he was acting in the public interest, and that the issue arose in the context of the pandemic and concerns about health and safety. It found, however, that the disclosure element was not made out on the basis relied on by the claimant: the claimant’s belief that the absence of private healthcare endangered health and safety was not reasonable, and the email chain was largely a request for private health insurance rather than a qualifying disclosure in the statutory sense. The Tribunal also found that, even if parts of the earlier email chain could be treated as communicating danger, those communications were not what led to the dismissal.

On the s.100(1)(e) claim, the Tribunal accepted that the claimant genuinely believed his health was at risk from attending central London sites during the first wave of the pandemic. It held, however, that asking the respondent for private health insurance was not an appropriate step within s.100(2), and that the circumstances of danger did not extend to the absence of private healthcare itself. The Tribunal found the dismissal was instead because of the claimant’s tone and conduct in continuing to copy in members of the team after being told not to do so, which it treated as misconduct. Both claims were dismissed and no remedy was awarded.