Mrs L Herring v J Lovric & Son — 2020

Mrs Herring worked for J Lovric & Son as a sales assistant from 16 August 2017. She notified the respondent of her pregnancy on 8 January 2018. The tribunal found that on 24 February 2018 she was late because of pregnancy-related sickness, and that the verbal warning issued after that incident was unfavourable treatment because of illness suffered as a result of pregnancy. It rejected the respondent's later explanation that the warning was only about failing to telephone before the shift, and found the lateness itself was at least part of the reason for the warning.

The tribunal also found that the respondent failed to carry out any pregnancy risk assessment, even though the claimant's role involved lifting heavy bundles of newspapers and shrink-wrapped packs of milk. It held that the work was of a kind that could involve risk to a pregnant employee under Regulation 16 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and that the failure to assess those risks was unlawful discrimination under section 18 Equality Act 2010. The claimant succeeded on both pregnancy discrimination complaints, but no remedy was quantified in this liability judgment.

After the protected period ended, the tribunal treated the respondent's later requests for further medical information as a section 13 Equality Act 2010 issue. It rejected the sex discrimination claim about those requests, finding that the claimant had not established a prima facie case and that a man with an equivalent occupational health assessment would likely have been asked for similar GP or consultant information. It also rejected the sex discrimination claim arising from the dismissal itself, finding no basis to infer that a hypothetical male employee in materially similar circumstances would have been treated differently.

The tribunal held that the dismissal on 6 September 2018 was automatically unfair under section 99 ERA 1996 and Regulation 20 of the Maternity and Parental Leave etc Regulations 1999. It found the dismissal was connected with pregnancy because the claimant was absent with illness arising from the way the pregnancy ended, and because her reluctance to provide further medical information about that distressing and private matter formed part of the reason for dismissal. The tribunal recorded that the claimant was entitled to a remedy for the two pregnancy discrimination findings and the automatically unfair dismissal finding, and gave the parties until 19 June 2020 to try to settle the remedy issue or seek a remedy hearing.