Mrs Caroline Law v The University of Cumbria — 2020

Mrs Law was employed on a series of fixed-term contracts by the University of Cumbria and was dismissed when her Academic Lead for STEM Outreach contract ended on 31 July 2020. The tribunal accepted that the respondent had genuinely decided to discontinue the majority of the role because John Fisher Foundation funding had ended, so the reason for dismissal was redundancy within s.139 ERA 1996. It rejected the arguments that the dismissal was automatically unfair by reason of pregnancy or fixed-term status.

The dismissal was nevertheless found to be unfair under s.98(4) ERA 1996. The tribunal held that consultation was not effective because Mrs Law was not given a proper opportunity to put her points to the people with budgetary responsibility for SNROS, her concerns about continued teaching work and embedding the outreach role were not meaningfully considered, and the HR13 process was treated as a tick-box exercise. It also found that the respondent did not take adequate steps to consider or broker alternative employment, including possible zoology teaching work and other roles within the university. The tribunal left any Polkey reduction to the remedy hearing.

On pregnancy discrimination, the tribunal rejected the allegations based on Mrs Lowthian's comments at the 29 May and 4 June 2020 meetings, finding that although they were unwelcome and inappropriate in context, they did not themselves amount to a legal detriment. It upheld the claim in relation to Mr Chesser's appeal-stage conduct on 9 July 2020, including his dismissive response to Mrs Law's point about vulnerability during pregnancy, his failure to investigate the concerns she raised, and his failure to address those concerns in the outcome letter. It also found that the failure to seek or consider alternatives to redundancy, and the predetermination of the redundancy consultation and appeal, were unfavourable treatment because of pregnancy.

The fixed-term employees claim failed because the tribunal found no comparable permanent employee under regulation 2 of the 2002 Regulations. It held that Nigel Smith's substantive role and Darryl Smith's lecturer role were not comparable to Mrs Law's unique post. The separate s.93 ERA 1996 claim for a written statement of reasons for dismissal also failed because the 16 June 2020 letter sufficiently identified redundancy caused by the end of project funding. No remedy was determined in this judgment, and a remedy hearing was directed for later.