Mr P Hodgson v Oil Consultants Ltd — 2021

Mr P Hodgson was employed by Oil Consultants Ltd from July 2018 until his dismissal on 31 July 2020. He advanced 12 alleged protected disclosures covering data protection, tax accounting, maternity-related information, bullying, redundancy handling, and later grievance issues. The tribunal held that several of the asserted disclosures were not qualifying disclosures because they lacked sufficient factual content and specificity, including the statement to Mr Parker that Ms Walker was "ruling the office by force" and the 3 March 2020 comment that "things are still not right". It also found that some alleged disclosures were not shown to have been known to the relevant decision-makers and therefore could not have materially influenced the treatment complained of.

The section 47B detriment complaints all failed. The tribunal accepted the respondent's explanations for the challenged acts, including Ms Walker's January 2020 forwarding of the annotated maternity email, the November 2019 NCR-related communications, the furlough decision in April 2020, the later pay reduction, the handling of the July 2020 grievance correspondence, and the Kaplan Financial telephone call after dismissal. It held that no reasonable worker in the claimant's position would have viewed several of the grievance-related matters as detriments, and that the dismissal-as-detriment argument could not succeed in respect of the employer's own dismissal decision. In any event, the tribunal found that the dismissal was not materially influenced by any protected disclosure.

On dismissal, the tribunal found that the reason for termination was redundancy. It accepted that the respondent had experienced a severe downturn in business during the Covid-19 pandemic and lower oil prices, and that Ms Smith decided that the business no longer needed a dedicated Quality and Compliance Manager. That meant the automatic unfair dismissal complaint under s103A ERA 1996 failed. The tribunal did not accept that the dismissal was because the claimant had made protected disclosures.

The ordinary unfair dismissal claim under s98 ERA 1996 succeeded. The tribunal found that the respondent's consultation process was largely reasonable, including its decision not to pool the claimant with others and its conclusion that there were no suitable alternative roles. However, it held that the process was unfair because Ms Smith did not have a further telephone conversation with the claimant before confirming dismissal to explain that the role would be abolished and why continued furlough was not being adopted. The tribunal considered that, had a fair procedure been followed, dismissal would likely have occurred one week later than it did, so any compensatory award would need to reflect that Polkey reduction.

The furlough pay dispute was also resolved in the claimant's favour. The tribunal held that the 24 April 2020 furlough letter meant the claimant's furlough pay was to be based on 80% of gross salary, with no contractual cap at £2,500 per month. It found that the later capped wording in the revised letter was not accepted by the claimant, either expressly or by conduct. The respondent therefore made unauthorised deductions from wages and breached the contract of employment, but the judgment did not fix the money figure and left the parties to agree damages or return for a remedy hearing.