Ms S Bowen, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2017

Mr J Strohm was a long-serving Lead Quality Specialist at NHS Blood & Transplant. The dispute began with A’s email of 4 January 2017 alleging harassment. The tribunal accepted that there was no evidence whatsoever of sexualised language or conduct, and approached the matter as a workplace conflict-management dispute involving the claimant, A and B. It found that the respondent’s objective was to contain the conflict and keep the parties working, although it could have communicated more clearly in writing.

After an informal meeting with Ms Murphy on 10 January 2017 and a period of apparent calm, further complaints led to a fact-finding process by Ms Ranson and Ms Kwenda in June to September 2017. Mr Rackham and Ms Elder decided not to take the matter to a disciplinary hearing, but instead to separate the claimant from A and B and to restrict his routine attendance at Colindale unless notified and approved. The tribunal held that Colindale remained the claimant’s contractual base, but his access to it was temporarily restricted for reasonable and proper cause. It rejected his case that he had been required to work from home, unfairly excluded from his workplace, or subjected to conduct that breached the Dignity at Work or grievance procedures in a repudiatory way.

The claimant pursued a grievance in October 2017, was instructed on 13 October not to work from Colindale pending resolution, and resigned the day after the grievance outcome letter of 7 December 2017. Applying s.95(1)(c) ERA 1996, Western Excavating, Malik and the last-straw approach in Kaur, Employment Judge R Lewis held that the respondent’s conduct was not without reasonable or proper cause and was not calculated or likely to destroy trust and confidence. The tribunal found that the immediate trigger for resignation was the grievance failure and the claimant’s perception that he would remain excluded from Colindale, but that this did not amount to constructive dismissal. The claim was dismissed and no remedy was awarded.