Mrs K Hogben v National Car Parks Limited — 2019

Mrs K Hogben resigned from her HR Manager role with effect from 31 August 2018 and said the conduct of the new HR Director, Sarah Gibbs, had destroyed trust and confidence. The tribunal considered fifteen alleged incidents from December 2017 to July 2018, including team meetings, one-to-one meetings, emails, the handling of sickness absence, grievance disclosure, and the 24 July 2018 return-to-work meeting.

The judge found that some of the claimant's factual complaints were made out, including that Mrs Gibbs could be blunt in tone, that she criticised the HR team's work and the claimant's handling of process maps, that she made a comment about a dog when discussing the claimant's mother, and that she told Paula Holt a grievance had been raised. However, the tribunal found that Mrs Gibbs had reasonable cause for the criticisms because she had been appointed to improve and professionalise HR, that several incidents were trivial or arose from poor communication, and that the dog comment was intended to be supportive rather than hurtful.

The tribunal also found that after the claimant went off sick, Mrs Gibbs' emails and letters were appropriate and supportive, and that the cumulative course of conduct still did not meet the objective threshold for a repudiatory breach of the implied term of trust and confidence. At the 24 July 2018 meeting, Mrs Gibbs' comments that the claimant could not simply walk back in, that there were bridges to build, and that she had not changed were found to be blunt but not a fundamental breach. The tribunal therefore held that the claimant had not been dismissed within s.95(1)(c) ERA 1996, so the unfair dismissal complaint failed and was dismissed; the fairness issues under s.98 did not arise.