Mr K McDonald v Halliwell Jones Ltd — 2021

The tribunal found that there had been a genuine redundancy situation in June 2020 and that the respondent was entitled to run a redundancy selection exercise within separate pools, including a workshop controller pool of three people. It accepted that the initial scoring exercise was not easy and had some subjectivity, but found the overall approach fair. When the claimant challenged the scoring and the evidence behind it, the respondent increased some of his scores, and after consultation the redundancy process was suspended because the managers were not comfortable making redundancies on the evidence then available and the business improved quickly afterwards.

The tribunal rejected the claimant's case that David Ogden had told him on 31 July 2020 that he had deliberately scored him lowest to make him redundant. It accepted Mr Ogden's account that he wanted to move on from the redundancy exercise and did not deliberately score the claimant to put him at the bottom. It also rejected the claimant's account of later incidents in October 2020, finding that the criticism over a customer job card was a minor workplace exchange and that the final meeting on 20 October 2020 was a heated discussion with raised voices, not shouting and swearing in front of colleagues or customers. The tribunal also found that Mr Ogden had not told the claimant he could not express opinions at work, but had said that criticisms should be raised with management.

Applying the constructive dismissal authorities, including section 95(1)(c) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, Western Excavating, Kaur and the implied term of mutual trust and confidence, the tribunal held that none of the incidents amounted to a repudiatory breach. Looking at the events separately and cumulatively, it found that the respondent had not destroyed or seriously damaged mutual trust and confidence and had acted with reasonable and proper cause. The claimant resigned in response to what he regarded as the final straw, but he was not entitled to treat himself as constructively dismissed, so the unfair dismissal claim was dismissed.