Mr A. Onafowokan v Lineside Logistics Southern Ltd — 2019

On 10 May 2019 the Claimant was team leader on Panther Line A. The tribunal found he had been told that Struandale was part of the area he was working in that day, and that when Mr Sahonune told him the area was full and the line had stopped, he took no action to escalate the problem. It found that he later told Mr Lewis there were no issues before leaving the site, and that Mr Dhanjal later telephoned him and shouted at him, saying words to the effect that his job was on the line.

The direct race discrimination claim failed. The tribunal held that it was in a position to make a positive finding that the demotion was because of the Claimant’s failure to escalate the problem, not because of race. It rejected the comparator case based on Mr Peter Young, found no persuasive evidence that the alleged segregation or excessive monitoring occurred, and held that the remark attributed to Mr Card in DDC could not support the race claim because it was not part of the pleaded case and was not directed at the relevant decision-makers. The tribunal applied the s.136 Equality Act burden-of-proof approach and concluded that the Respondent had given a non-discriminatory explanation for the demotion.

The constructive dismissal claim also failed. The tribunal accepted that the Respondent had no contractual power to demote the Claimant or reduce his pay, so those actions were breaches of contract, but it held that the Claimant affirmed the contract by staying in employment after the decisions, then requesting a move to DDC in August 2019 and taking the day-shift role at the lower rate. It therefore dismissed the claim without making any remedy award. The tribunal added that, if it had been wrong about affirmation, the dismissal would have been for conduct and fair, because the Respondent genuinely and reasonably believed the Claimant had committed serious misconduct in failing to escalate the line stoppage.