Mrs N Agarwal v St John Freight System UK Limited — 2019

Mrs N Agarwal worked for St John Freight System UK Limited as a Customer Services Assistant. The tribunal found that the written terms set out in the September 2017 email provided for work in the office from 9am to 3pm and from home from 4:30pm to 5:30pm, and that there was no clear instruction or formal change requiring her to work full time in the office before the pregnancy-related events. Although the respondent said the home-working arrangement was not working well and should have changed earlier, the tribunal found there was no written notification or formal meeting to impose new hours, and that the issue was left unresolved for many months.

On 24 October 2018, after the claimant left work and went to hospital because she was pregnant and had bleeding, the tribunal accepted her account of the telephone conversation with Mr Kanakasahai. It found that he told her she would need to be in the office between 9am and 5:30pm and, if she could not do so, she would need to resign. The tribunal found that remark would not have been made if she had not told him her absence was pregnancy-related, and it treated that as unfavourable treatment within section 18(2)(a) Equality Act 2010.

The tribunal also found that when the claimant later sought to return from sickness absence in January 2019, the respondent made clear she could return only if she worked 9am to 5:30pm in the office. It found that the requirement would not have been imposed but for the pregnancy-related absence, and that the change was a detriment because it conflicted with her childcare arrangements and she was fatigued from pregnancy. That amounted to unfavourable treatment within section 18(2)(b) Equality Act 2010. The judgment records that a separate remedy hearing was listed for 7 February 2020, so no compensation figure was decided in this decision.