Dr S Shaw v Dr Thakkar R1 Dr Caswell R2 Dr Naheed R3 Dr Bargate R4 Partnership known as “The Bourne End and Wooburn Green Medical Centre” R5 — 2023

The claimant, a GP partner, brought harassment, direct sex discrimination, pregnancy and maternity discrimination, and victimisation complaints arising from maternity-clause discussions, later remarks about pregnancy, requests for management sessions and occupational health input, the covid-admin invoicing decision, her resignation from the partnership, and removal of her name from the practice website. The tribunal applied the burden of proof under s.136 EQA, the continuing-act and time-limit approach under s.123 EQA, and reason-why analysis in deciding whether the conduct was because of sex, pregnancy/maternity, or protected acts.

It held that most allegations before 27 December 2020 were out of time and refused to extend time for them, except for the covid-admin invoicing allegation and the constructive-expulsion allegation, for which time was extended. On the merits, the tribunal did not accept the alleged February 2018 remark, found that the April 2018 words were not proved as alleged, and held that the June 2019 comments did not amount to unlawful treatment. It found that Dr Thakkar probably made the September 2019 "dog with a bone" comment, but not because of sex, pregnancy, maternity leave, or the protected acts.

The tribunal also found that the October 2019 WhatsApp dispute was about the tone of the claimant's criticism of a colleague and the handling of patient information, not about sex discrimination or victimisation. It accepted that the partners decided in spring 2020 to invoice £150 per week for "Covid admin" without a formal partnership meeting, which breached the partnership agreement, but found that the reason was their genuine belief that this was a replacement for earlier IA/EH funding and that the claimant would know about it, not her sex, pregnancy or maternity leave, or either protected act. The tribunal therefore treated the claimant's resignation as a constructive expulsion under s46(6)(b), but held that the underlying decision was not discriminatory.

The tribunal further found that the removal of the claimant's name from the website was a routine administrative decision by the practice manager, made because the claimant would not be seeing patients before the end of her notice period. It did not resolve whether Dr Bargate was a partner or an employee, because the claim failed either way. No complaint succeeded and no remedy was awarded.