Dr Austen Morgan, of counsel For the v Respondent — 2019

The claimant worked for the first respondent from 13 February 2017 until dismissal on 29 December 2017. She told the respondents on 29 November 2017 that she was pregnant. The central factual issue was whether the respondents had already given her notice of dismissal on 31 October 2017, as they later asserted, or whether the termination process only began after the pregnancy disclosure.

The tribunal admitted and considered covert recordings of meetings in December 2017, together with the claimant's email of 14 December 2017 and later correspondence. Applying the balance of probabilities and bearing in mind the approach in Braganza v BP Shipping Ltd to allegations of dishonesty, it preferred the claimant's evidence. It found that the 31 October 2017 notice story was not true, that the decisive discussions took place on 8, 14, 19, 27 and 29 December 2017, and that the second respondent discussed resignation, statutory maternity pay, maternity allowance, and a notice period ending on 29 December 2017. The tribunal noted the later correction of the claimant's GP notes from 'redundancy' to 'dismissed', but did not treat that as displacing the overall conclusion.

On those findings, the tribunal held that dismissing the claimant in order to avoid paying statutory maternity pay was automatic unfair dismissal within section 99 ERA 1996 and regulation 20 of MAPLE 1999. It also upheld the claim for unlawful detriments under section 47C ERA 1996 and MAPLE 1999, and the pregnancy discrimination claim under section 18(2)(a) EqA 2010. The first respondent was also found to have failed to give written reasons for dismissal contrary to section 92(4) ERA 1996. Liability was determined only; the tribunal directed a separate remedy hearing for 13 September 2019 and made no monetary award in this judgment.