Mr S Cardarello v Manheim Limited — 2023

Mr Cardarello was employed by Manheim Limited as a part-time line driver from September 2016. He was an Italian national with type 2 diabetes and lumbago with sciatica. Before the merits hearing, the Tribunal refused an amendment to add a January 2021 race allegation, allowed the race comments complaint to proceed only on the 2017 to March 2019 basis, and allowed the inspector-role allegation to proceed.

On the race harassment complaint, the Tribunal found that the alleged racist comments by David were not proved on the balance of probabilities. It also found that the scanner incident involving Richard was not shown to be related to race. In any event, the complaint was presented almost two years after the latest alleged act, and the Tribunal declined to extend time on a just and equitable basis because of the delay and the prejudice to the Respondent.

On the disability complaints, the Tribunal rejected the section 15 allegation that the Claimant had been rejected for the inspector role in February 2019 and the allegation about the 6 March 2019 meeting. It found that Ms Hubbard had at most expressed a view that the inspector role would not be suitable, that the Claimant had not applied for the role, and that the March 2019 discussion concerned his fitness to work and the effect of the sick pay rules rather than unfavourable treatment. Those complaints were also held to be out of time, with no just and equitable extension.

The reasonable adjustments complaint was also dismissed. The Tribunal held that the barrier-duty complaint from June 2018 was out of time and not established on the evidence before it, that the break-arrangement complaint did not place the Claimant at a substantial disadvantage when compared with the comparator adopted by the Tribunal, and that the third alleged PCP from March 2019 was not made out. For direct disability discrimination, the Tribunal found there was no basis to infer that disability or sickness absence played any part in the redundancy dismissal on 15 January 2021, particularly because all line drivers were made redundant and the Claimant did not challenge the redundancy process. The unfair dismissal complaint was withdrawn by the Claimant during closing submissions, and no compensation was awarded.