Miss D Harding v St George’s University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust — 2022

Miss D Harding, a band 7 Senior Human Resources Advisor, brought Equality Act claims alleging race discrimination, victimisation and failure to make reasonable adjustments. The tribunal described the case as one about mismatched expectations between how the claimant expected her role to develop and the level at which the respondent expected her to perform. It held that complaints based on conduct before 7 December 2019 were out of time and that there was no basis to extend time under s.123 EqA. The reasons also note that a separate second claim had been struck out on 4 April 2023, but it was not part of the substantive liability issues decided in this judgment.

The race discrimination claim failed on every pleaded allegation. The tribunal found that the claimant's comparators KM and NM were not proper comparators because of different roles and different responses to management. It accepted that asking the claimant to investigate DP was within her job description, found the job evaluation incident and the informal action plan were explained by workload and performance concerns, and did not accept the allegation that Mr Wall told her to prove race discrimination. It also found that Ms McCullough's grievance investigation was reasonable and that the later complaints about mediation, Divisional Management Board attendance and development opportunities were either not pleaded, not made out, or amounted only to ordinary management decisions.

On victimisation, the tribunal rejected the alleged October 2018 protected act and held that the 25 November 2018 complaint and 5 December 2019 grievance were not protected acts because they did not amount to allegations of an EqA contravention. It accepted the 21 January 2020 grievance as a protected act because it referred to disability and a requested reasonable adjustment, but most of the alleged detriments pre-dated that grievance. The later allegations were either too vague, not detriments at all, or legitimate managerial steps, so the claimant did not prove that any detriment was imposed because of a protected act.

On reasonable adjustments, the respondent accepted that the claimant was disabled by depression from 15 April 2019, but the tribunal found that the alleged PCPs were not established on the facts or did not place her at a substantial disadvantage. It held that the on-site working requirement reflected the operational needs of a small HR team, that the claimant's working hours had already varied, and that the allegation about weekly 1:1 meetings lasting more than two hours was not proved. The proposed adjustments were therefore not required, and all Equality Act claims were dismissed with no compensation awarded.