Mrs D Wingeatt v Progress Housing Group Limited — 2022

Mrs Wingeatt brought age discrimination claims about Progress Housing Group Ltd's decision to activate a contractual payment in lieu of notice clause when her IT role was ending during a restructure. The tribunal found that her contract had contained a PILON clause since 1999, that the IT restructure had been running from mid-2019, that the Business Systems Manager role had been ring-fenced for her for several months, and that by the time PILON was considered the team was operating under the new structure and the role had been filled by Mr Andy Crame.

On the direct age discrimination claim, the tribunal accepted that the claimant viewed the PILON decision as detrimental, but held that this was not a reasonable perception in the circumstances. It found that Ms Van Duyvenvoorde made the PILON decision for business reasons only, that the claimant's age played no role in that decision, and that any possible pension strain beyond age 55 was not part of the material decision-making.

On the indirect age discrimination claim, the tribunal accepted that the contractual PILON clause was a PCP, but found no evidence that it put people sharing the claimant's age at a particular disadvantage. The evidence before the tribunal showed PILON was used irrespective of age, including for younger employees, so the claim failed at the disadvantage stage. Both claims were dismissed, and the tribunal said it was unnecessary to go on to justification.