Mr G Bailey v ADM Pressings Limited — 2021

Mr Bailey worked for ADM Pressings as a Quality Assurance Engineer from 4 May 2017 and became Senior Quality Engineer on 17 September 2018. He resigned on 29 May 2019. At the hearing he withdrew his disability discrimination complaints on the first day, and withdrew the health and safety constructive dismissal complaint on day five after documents were produced showing he had been told the identity of the respondent's safety officer at induction. The remaining issues were automatic unfair constructive dismissal for making protected disclosures and ordinary unfair constructive dismissal.

The tribunal considered alleged disclosures about Caterpillar steel specifications, Jaguar Land Rover welding, and Aston Martin adhesive. On the steel issue, it accepted that the claimant had raised the difference between the stock/specification numbers and that this was a technical departure from the drawing requirements, but it found no evidence that he had shown the grades were materially different or that he identified any detriment flowing from the point. On the welding complaints, the tribunal found he had expressed an opinion that an SREA should be obtained rather than disclosing qualifying information with sufficient factual content. On the adhesive issue, it found that the claimant did disclose that adhesive was beyond its use-by date, but that he knew about the respondent's one-month grace period, his contemporaneous emails did not mention safety, and his belief that the matter showed a legal breach or health and safety risk was not reasonable.

The tribunal further found that the respondent's refusal to accept the claimant's view about SREA approval or customer notification did not amount to conduct that he could not reasonably be expected to put up with. It found no actionable detriment linked to any protected disclosure, and no repudiatory breach of contract. The claimant had accepted a promotion in September 2018 and continued working after the 2018 steel issue, which the tribunal treated as affirmation of any earlier breach. It also found that, shortly before resigning, he copied confidential documents including concessions, timings, pricings and customer lists to his home email and USB drive, which was a clear breach of contract. The tribunal recorded that later customer responses and the independent investigation by Mr John Shields did not support the claimant's safety concerns, and it dismissed the remaining claims.