Mr P Jeffries v Stagecoach South East — 2023

Mr Jeffries, a Stagecoach South East supervisor, was placed on furlough in March 2020 after the Stagecoach Express service was ended and Park and Ride was suspended during the covid-19 lockdown. In June 2020 he posted a tweet about Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu and Nigel Farage, which Stagecoach treated as linked to his employment because his social media account and earlier posts identified his connection with the company. Following investigation, Ms Jones dismissed him on 23 June 2020 without notice, the first appeal was heard by Ms Howe, and the final appeal by Mr Wallis.

The tribunal held that the dismissal was unfair because Stagecoach did not reasonably investigate the relevance of Mr Jeffries' mental health overall. Ms Jones accepted he was depressed but did not follow up the issue as potential mitigation; the majority found Ms Howe did consider mental health as mitigation, while Mr Wallis focused narrowly on whether Mr Jeffries could understand the policy. Taking the process as a whole, the tribunal concluded that the investigation into mental health fell short of a reasonable investigation. It also found, however, that dismissal itself was within the range of reasonable responses because the tweet was reasonably treated as racist and inflammatory and could damage Stagecoach's reputation.

The wrongful dismissal claim succeeded because the tweet was misconduct but not gross misconduct. The tribunal said the post went close to the line, but had to be assessed as a single act outside the workplace, in the context of a political discussion, and against the background of Mr Jeffries' depression, which the tribunal accepted affected his behaviour. On that basis, Stagecoach was not entitled to summarily dismiss him without notice. A remedies hearing was to be listed for the successful unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal claims.

The disability discrimination claims were dismissed. On direct discrimination, the tribunal found that the reason for the furlough, disciplinary action and dismissal was the tweet and not Mr Jeffries' disability, and that his disability had no negative influence on the decisions made. On the s15 claim, the tribunal accepted that his mood swings arose in consequence of his disability, but found that Stagecoach's treatment was driven by the closure of services and the tweet, not by those symptoms. The separate breach of contract claim about underpaid wages in 2017 and 2018 was also dismissed because the claimant did not prove a contractual entitlement to retain Herne Bay seniority or a higher rate of pay.