In person For the v Respondent — 2022

Mrs Goodison worked for HS2 from 2017 and was affected by Project Evolve. She brought claims of constructive unfair dismissal, direct and indirect race discrimination, race harassment and victimisation. The Tribunal allowed her to rely on her two grievances as protected acts for the victimisation claim. It found that the final grievance outcome report of 11 August 2021 upheld some allegations, but the central issue for dismissal was the time taken to reach any outcome.

On the race claims, the Tribunal accepted HS2's explanations for the work allocations and management decisions. It found that tasks given to the Claimant were allocated because of her existing responsibility and knowledge of the relevant work, not because she was Black. Laura Day's comments about the Claimant's tone and the phrase that HS2 was 'not whiter than white here' were found not to be race-related. The proposed salary reduction was never implemented, the grievance outcome and related criticisms were not because of race, and the indirect discrimination claim failed because the alleged PCP did not show disadvantage to Black employees.

On victimisation, the Tribunal found that the delay in dealing with the Claimant's DSAR and FOI material was an oversight by the data protection officer, not a reaction to protected acts, and that Carl Bird's email about not clogging up everyone's email was simply reinforcing an email-management instruction. Donovan Bailey's comments on 8 July 2020 pre-dated the grievances, and the criticism in the grievance report was not because the Claimant had done protected acts. In contrast, the Tribunal held that HS2 breached the implied term of trust and confidence by taking more than a year to conclude the grievance, contrary to its own policy and occupational health advice to resolve the workplace issues early. The Claimant resigned partly in response to that breach and was therefore constructively and unfairly dismissed, but the question of whether she would have resigned anyway was left to the remedy hearing listed for 28 April 2023. No monetary award was determined in this liability judgment.