In Person v Respondent — 2019

Dr Warner brought claims of race discrimination, public interest disclosure detriment and unlawful deduction from wages arising from long-running disputes within the neurology department about job planning, workload and related correspondence with Dr Tibbs and others. The tribunal recorded that he joined the respondent in 2002, had a temporary increase to 13 PAs early in his employment, and then signed a formal agreement in January 2006 for a 40-hour, 10 PA week.

The unlawful deduction claim was dismissed. The tribunal found as a fact that the claimant was paid on the basis of the 10 PA contract throughout the relevant period and had not shown that he was owed additional contractual pay.

The whistleblowing claim was also dismissed. The tribunal was unable to identify any qualifying disclosure under s.43B ERA 1996. It accepted that the claimant had raised repeated concerns about Dr Trend, but found those concerns were individual in nature and did not have the required public interest element. The tribunal rejected the alleged detriments relied on for the PID claim, including the job-planning complaints, the 8 September 2016 email, the handling of the fake-email issue in February 2017, and the 2 April 2017 revalidation email. It found the 2 April 2017 email was poorly worded and inaccurate in part, but held that there was no protected disclosure and therefore no PID liability.

The race discrimination claim was dismissed. The tribunal applied the burden-of-proof approach in Igen and Madarassy and considered adverse inference principles in Anya. It found that the claimant had not proved less favourable treatment because he was Jewish or because of race or ethnic origin, and that there was no evidence from which the tribunal could infer discrimination. It also held that the 2016 and early 2017 matters were substantially out of time and that there was no basis to extend time on a just and equitable basis. No monetary award was made because all claims failed.