Miss L. Grant v Dreamz Hair and Beauty Limited and 1 other — 2019

Miss L. Grant worked as a nail technician for Dreamz Hair and Beauty Limited and the second respondent, Ms K. Hollington-Coombs, before taking maternity leave and later becoming pregnant again. The tribunal found that some early allegations about midwife appointments in 2016 were out of time and not proved, and it rejected the claimant's allegations that the second respondent made the more serious sex-related comments she alleged in 2017.

The tribunal upheld the pregnancy and maternity discrimination claim in relation to the claimant's exclusion from the Christmas party while she was on maternity leave. It found that the respondent accepted she was not invited because she was on maternity leave, that the claimant was upset and excluded by this treatment, and that the incident formed part of a continuing act. The tribunal also treated the later dismissal/redundancy process as unfavourable treatment because of pregnancy and maternity, finding no credible redundancy explanation and no fair consideration of alternatives or a selection pool.

On the dismissal issues, the tribunal found that the claimant was told at the 26 March 2018 meeting that she would be laid off or made redundant, but that this had been decided in advance and was not a consensual termination. It held that there was insufficient evidence that the claimant's role had genuinely become redundant, noted that staff had been taken on during her maternity leave to cover some of her work, and concluded that the respondent had not shown a potentially fair reason for dismissal. The dismissal was therefore unfair and automatically unfair under section 99 Employment Rights Act 1996; the tribunal also said, in the alternative, that the claimant had been constructively dismissed.

For remedy, the tribunal awarded the claimant three months' money rather than the year's loss she claimed, saying she had not shown that she was unable to work or to mitigate her loss. It awarded £1,675.02 as compensatory award including notice pay, plus £138.46 for loss of statutory rights, making £1,813.48 on the unfair dismissal claim. It also awarded £10,000 for injury to feelings on the pregnancy and maternity discrimination claim, with interest of £1,017.78 at 8% to 12 March 2019, giving a total award of £12,831.26.