Case 2410695/2019 · Employment Tribunal
Miss R Richardson v James Fisher Nuclear Limited — 2021
- Case reference
- 2410695/2019
- Decision date
- 24 March 2021
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Phil Allen
- Panel members
- Ms L Atkinson, Mr C Cunningham
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Miss R Richardson
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe claimant worked for the respondent from 5 September 2018 until her dismissal on 29 April 2019. The tribunal found that she was not issued with written confirmation that her probationary period had been completed, and that the key events leading to dismissal took place after she told Mr McCormick on 7 March 2019 that she was pregnant. The tribunal accepted that the decision to dismiss was made after Mr McCormick returned from leave in mid-April, and that the email of 18 April 2019 to HR showed that he had already decided to dismiss her.
Applying the burden of proof under section 136 Equality Act 2010 and the approach in O'Neill to the real and efficient cause of dismissal, the tribunal found facts from which pregnancy discrimination could be inferred. It rejected the respondent's shifting explanations for dismissal, including reliance on DBS issues, alleged timekeeping or attendance problems, alleged failure to meet induction objectives, alleged failure to support the team, and alleged reporting failures. The tribunal found there was an unexplained lack of contemporaneous evidence supporting those explanations, and that the 4 April email giving the claimant additional line management responsibilities was inconsistent with a dismissal decision already having been made.
The tribunal therefore held that the claimant was treated unfavourably because of pregnancy, in breach of section 18 Equality Act 2010, and that her dismissal was automatically unfair because the principal reason for dismissal was pregnancy, within section 99 Employment Rights Act 1996 and Regulation 20 of the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999. On holiday pay, the tribunal found that the claimant had been allowed to carry over three days leave from 2018, that she was entitled to eight days leave for 2019, had taken two days in April 2019, and had been paid in lieu of only 1.5 days, leaving 4.5 days unpaid. No monetary remedy figure is set out in the extracted judgment text provided.
Claims and outcomes
3 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pregnancy and maternity discrimination | The tribunal found that the claimant was treated unfavourably because of pregnancy by being dismissed, contrary to section 18 Equality Act 2010. | Upheld | Pregnancy and maternity | — |
| Unfair dismissal | The tribunal found that the principal reason for dismissal was pregnancy, so the dismissal was automatically unfair under section 99 Employment Rights Act 1996 and Regulation 20 of the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999. | Upheld | — | — |
| Unlawful deduction from wages | The tribunal found that the respondent failed to pay the claimant for 4.5 days of accrued but untaken annual leave on termination. | Upheld | — | — |
Legal tests applied
9 references- section 99 Employment Rights Act 1996
- Regulation 20 Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999
- section 18 Equality Act 2010
- section 136 Equality Act 2010
- O'Neill v Governors of St Thomas More Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided School
- Hewage v Grampian Health Board
- Igen Ltd v Wong
- Madarassy v Nomura International PLC
- Zafar v Glasgow City Council
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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