Mr P Wright v Walgreens Boots Alliance Services Limited — 2023

Mr Wright was employed by Walgreens Boots Alliance Services Limited from 1 October 2016 until his redundancy dismissal on 24 September 2021. The preliminary hearing concerned only whether his race and sex discrimination complaints were in time under section 123 of the Equality Act 2010. The allegations before the tribunal were that he was overlooked for promotion to IT finance, planning and analysis director in January 2019, was not given an opportunity to apply for the IT Project Director role in June 2021, and that Mr Kakar was promoted to Head of IT Finance in June/July 2021.

The tribunal held that the January 2019 sex discrimination allegation was not part of a continuing act with the later allegations. It found the 2019 objectives about increasing representation of women and people of colour in leadership were aspirational and not, in themselves, evidence of discrimination. It also noted that different individuals made the appointment decisions and that the 2019 incident was an isolated event more than two and a half years before the later matters.

The tribunal further held that the discrimination allegations were not part of a continuing act with the claimant’s dismissal. The list of issues did not allege that the dismissal was discriminatory, no case was advanced to link the promotion complaints with the redundancy dismissal, and the tribunal therefore treated the discrimination complaints as separate from the dismissal for limitation purposes.

On the just and equitable question, the tribunal found that SDA1 was out of time by over 33 months and that the reasons advanced for delay did not justify extension. It rejected the explanations that the claimant feared for his job, was distracted by divorce proceedings, was too ill to act, did not understand that a white man could bring a discrimination claim, or was unaware of the time limits. It relied in part on the fact that he raised a detailed grievance in August 2021, sought legal advice during the consultation process, and was able to bring his unfair dismissal claim in time. The race and sex discrimination claims were dismissed.