Miss Meade, solicitor For the v Respondent — 2022

The claimant worked for the respondent and its predecessor companies for over 44 years as Senior Sales Ledger Clerk and had told colleagues before 2022 that she expected to retire around July or August 2022. Her workload increased materially from 27 January 2022 after the acquisition of Dennis, when additional cashiers and billings work fell largely to her and one colleague. She raised concerns with her manager, but the tribunal found that she did not pursue the matter in writing or through a grievance. The tribunal approached the discrimination claim under section 13 EqA 2010 and the section 136 burden of proof, with reference to Shamoon and Madarassy.

On the age discrimination claim, the tribunal accepted the evidence of the respondent's Group Finance Director that the vacancy approval process and later redundancy planning were driven by the claimant's anticipated retirement and by business relocation and recruitment considerations, not by age. The disclosure of documents R1-R7 showed that the first collation of names and figures for possible redundancies was on 23 June 2022 and that formal approval to proceed was not given until 26 July 2022, after the claimant had left. The tribunal found that the claimant's suspicion that redundancies had been delayed until after her departure was ill-founded and that the only reason she did not receive a contractual redundancy payment was that she left on 21 July 2022 rather than two to three months later.

On the constructive unfair dismissal claim, the tribunal accepted that the workload pressure was substantial and that the employer's response was limited, but it held that any breach of the implied duty of trust and confidence was not an effective cause of the resignation. It referred to Abbycars on effective cause and to Cockram on waiver and affirmation, and found that the claimant's decision to resign on 7 June 2022, effective 21 July 2022, was not materially affected by the workload pressure because she had already been planning to retire around that time. The tribunal was divided on whether the conduct crossed the line into a fundamental breach, but that disagreement did not alter the result because causation was not made out.

The redundancy payment claim also failed. The tribunal held that it required a finding that the claimant had been dismissed for redundancy under section 139(1) ERA 1996, which was not the case on the evidence and was not contended by either party. The final result was that the discrimination, constructive unfair dismissal and redundancy payment claims were all dismissed.