Mr M Coatsworth v Nattrav Limited — 2021

The race harassment complaint was dismissed. The tribunal found that the alleged March 2016 comments and the later 2017 incident were not proved to the necessary standard, had not been raised at the time, and were brought well outside the time limit. It held the allegations were not part of a continuing course of conduct and refused to extend time; it also noted that the claimant returned to work after the first alleged incident and did not treat the workplace as hostile at that stage.

The constructive unfair dismissal claim was also dismissed. Applying Western Excavating v Sharp, Woods v WM Car Services, Nottinghamshire County Council v Meikle and WE Cox Toner v Crook, the tribunal held that most of the alleged breaches were either too old, not made out, or had been affirmed by the claimant continuing to work. It accepted that some June 2018 issues about the truck and the wage deductions could amount to breaches, but found that the claimant did not resign because of those matters.

The tribunal found that the claimant’s own evidence and resignation letter pointed instead to the ongoing wage dispute and the respondent’s refusal to settle his unpaid wages claim. It noted that he had accepted sick pay for more than six months before resigning on 22 January 2019, which in any event amounted to affirmation of earlier breaches. The automatic unfair dismissal claim under section 103A ERA 1996 therefore failed.

The whistleblowing complaints were split. The tribunal found that the claimant made protected disclosures to Mr Wilson on 26, 27 and 28 June 2018 about a defective truck and that he suffered a detriment in being required to keep driving it on those three days. It rejected the allegations that he was threatened with dismissal or deprived of sick pay because of those disclosures, and it listed a separate remedy hearing for the detriment claim. The dismissal claim based on protected disclosure failed because the tribunal found the June 2018 disclosures were not the principal reason for the January 2019 resignation.

The unlawful deduction from wages claim succeeded in part. After a broad-brush review of the trackers, timesheets and job documents, the tribunal accepted that the claimant had been underpaid for 510 hours between November 2016 and June 2018 at £8 per hour, producing £4,080. It also upheld the £20 timesheet charge and the £14.36 phone charge, but dismissed the remaining alleged deductions. The total award was £4,114.36.