Claimant v Chidavaenzi v Spencer & Arlington Ltd — 2019

The claimant was employed as a support worker from 2 May 2011 until his dismissal without notice in March 2016. He was black Zimbabwean and said that he had a severe stammer, but the tribunal did not accept that he had a perceptible stammer at any material time. It found the respondent's witnesses credible, and found the claimant inconsistent and unreliable on a number of matters, including the alleged texts and the timing and existence of the communications said to amount to protected disclosures.

On unfair dismissal, the tribunal accepted that the respondent dismissed the claimant for misconduct, namely the way it believed he had behaved towards CF and towards managers and colleagues. It found that the investigation was reasonable and the respondent genuinely believed the misconduct allegations, but the disciplinary process was procedurally unfair because the claimant was not given Ms Paul's report or the full Local Authority report, and the hearing was badly handled. The tribunal held that, had a fair procedure been followed, dismissal would inevitably have followed in any event, so it reduced both the basic award and the compensatory award to nil because of the claimant's conduct and Polkey considerations.

The protected disclosure claims failed. The tribunal found that some of the alleged disclosures were not made at all, some did not amount to qualifying disclosures, and others were made but were not the reason for the disciplinary steps or dismissal. It also dismissed the detriment complaint because the warning, suspension, disciplinary hearing, appeal issues and related steps were found to be responses to the claimant's conduct, not to any protected disclosure. The race discrimination claim, the harassment claims related to race and disability, and the reasonable adjustments claim all failed: the tribunal did not find a race link in the respondent's treatment, did not accept that the claimant had a disability by reason of stammer at the relevant time, and found no basis on which the respondent should have known of any disability or any substantial disadvantage.

The breach of contract claim for wrongful dismissal also failed. The tribunal found that the claimant's attempt to influence CF to complain about colleagues was a manifest safeguarding issue and a fundamental breach of trust and confidence, so summary dismissal was justified. No separate monetary award was made beyond the nil basic and compensatory awards on the unfair dismissal claim.