L Roberts v Logo Design Grp Ltd — 2018

Mr L Roberts worked for the respondent for 30 years as a senior designer and was dismissed by the managing director on 9 May 2017 after a meeting in a pub. The tribunal found that the stated reason of redundancy was not the real reason and that the only reason for dismissal was his age. It also found that the respondent later advertised for someone to do the work he had been doing. The respondent did not attend the hearing, filed no response, and a preliminary hearing judgment had already been entered for the claimant on 24 May 2018, so the September 2018 hearing was a remedy hearing only.

For the dismissal-related awards, the tribunal held that the claimant was entitled to 12 weeks' notice but had only been paid for 8 weeks, so it ordered 4 weeks' notice pay of £2,269.24. It then made a basic award of £13,203, calculated on 27 weeks at the statutory maximum weekly amount of £489 because the claimant had 20 full years' service and 14 of those years counted at 1.5 weeks each. The compensatory award was £22,670.09, made up of £350 for loss of statutory industrial rights, £2,836.55 for five weeks without income after the notice period, £15,249.52 for one year's earnings loss, and a 25% uplift for failure to follow the ACAS Code.

On age discrimination, the tribunal accepted that the dismissal had a substantial effect on the claimant. It awarded £15,000 for injury to feelings, describing the case as falling within the middle Vento band and taking account of the claimant's depressive vulnerability and the impact on him after dismissal. It also awarded £157,070.06 for loss of earnings and pension contributions, based on a continuing loss to retirement age after allowing for his new work at lower pay. The age discrimination award totalled £172,070.06, and the order records a total sum of £210,212.19.