Ms J Wood v Refresco Drinks UK Limited — 2021

Ms J Wood worked as a Purchasing Manager reporting to Trevor Cadden. An open preliminary hearing on 22 October 2020 had already dismissed her age and sex discrimination claims because they were presented out of time, leaving only victimisation for the reserved hearing. The tribunal held that her grievance dated 27 May 2019 was a protected act because it included allegations of age discrimination in the Site Supply Manager recruitment process and sex discrimination more generally.

The tribunal applied section 27 Equality Act principles on victimisation and asked whether the Claimant had suffered a detriment that a reasonable worker would regard as disadvantageous. On the first alleged detriment, concerning refusal to release interview transcripts, it accepted Mr Cadden's evidence that he did not try to influence Mr Singh or Mr Wishart not to disclose their transcripts. It also found that the Claimant's complaint about not receiving the transcripts was not an objectively reasonable detriment because she had not been promised them, the grievance outcome was already clear, and the transcripts were not required for the grievance to be understood.

On the alleged exclusion from meetings and reduced contact, the tribunal found that the weekly meetings remained in the Claimant's diary and were not compulsory, while the monthly meetings simply ceased after May 2019. It also found that Mr Cadden did not stop speaking to her or cancel one-to-ones; his limited availability was because of the restructure, and the one-to-ones were optional slots that the Claimant chose not to use. The complaint that he did not try to persuade her to stay, while he had travelled to persuade Hannah Smith to reconsider, failed because Ms Smith's circumstances were different and the Claimant had made clear during consultation that she would not apply for roles in the new structure.

The tribunal further held that Mr Cadden's failure to speak to her or wish her well on her last day, although upsetting to her, did not place her at a disadvantage for the purposes of victimisation. Even if any of the matters complained of had amounted to detriments, the tribunal found they were not caused by the protected act: Mr Cadden was largely unaware of the extent of the grievance, and his reduced interaction with the Claimant was attributed to the restructure and her focus on handover to Mr Wishart. The victimisation claim was therefore dismissed as not well-founded.