Mr W Huntley v Siemens Healthcare Ltd — 2019

The claimant was a long-serving field service engineer. The tribunal accepted that his back condition was a disability at all material times and that depression and anxiety were a disability from 3 June 2020 onwards. By the close of the hearing, six disability discrimination complaints and one ordinary unfair dismissal claim remained; all other claims had been withdrawn and dismissed on withdrawal.

The disability discrimination complaints all failed. The tribunal held that the complaints based on supplying expected arrival times and using GPS to check journey data did not identify an unlawful PCP disadvantage: the claimant's case was really about the specific arrival times set, not the existence of those PCPs, and the adjustments proposed did not answer that point. It also held that the PCP of a formal disciplinary process for misconduct was not unlawful because some disciplinary process was appropriate where misconduct was suspected. The grievance appeal complaints failed because the 5-day appeal deadline was not applied to the claimant, his brief email appeal was accepted, and he was not required to attend a face-to-face appeal meeting because the appeal proceeded on written submissions. The tribunal did not accept that the required causative link was shown for the discrimination arising from disability complaint.

The unfair dismissal claim also failed. The disciplinary invitation identified the allegation that the claimant had dishonestly said he did not know about the Heyford Park job, and the tribunal found that the allegation was put to him at the disciplinary hearing. It held that the decision-maker had a genuine and reasonable belief, based on the WhatsApp messages, call records and the claimant's own answers, that he had been dishonest. Applying the Burchell approach and s.98(4) ERA 1996, the tribunal held that the dismissal was not unfair.