Ms G Churchhouse, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2022

The claimant, Mr Peter Richards, was dismissed on 2 July 2020 in a restructuring exercise at M-Solv Limited. The tribunal accepted that the business was under significant financial pressure from CNI, that Covid-19 and the pause in BGF investment increased the urgency of the restructure, and that the creation of a smaller Tools business unit was a genuine redundancy situation. It rejected the claimant’s automatic unfair dismissal case under s.99 ERA 1996, finding that the principal reason for dismissal was redundancy and not paternity leave, parental leave or time off for a dependent.

The tribunal found that Dr Rumsby had a troublingly uncaring attitude to the claimant’s family circumstances, including his responses to emails about childcare and his daughter’s illness. Even so, it held that those views were not actively operating as the reason for dismissal in 2020. The claimant had been included in the 3 April and 17 April 2020 restructuring process, invited to comment on the draft structure and job descriptions, and later applied for the Tools Business Unit Director role alongside Dr Brunton and Mr Milne.

The fairness of the process was found to be tainted by Dr Rumsby’s lack of objectivity and failure to keep an open mind. The tribunal accepted that the other panel members acted in good faith, and found that Dr Brunton was comfortably the strongest candidate and would have been selected in any event. However, it also held that the claimant should reasonably have been considered for other potentially suitable alternative roles, including the Chief Engineer/Chief Technologist role and the Operations Manager role, rather than being left out of consideration without an open and transparent process. For those reasons, the dismissal was held to be unfair under s.98(4) ERA 1996.

The tribunal also made findings that the claimant’s covert access to HR files and Dr Rumsby’s desk in late April and early May 2020 amounted to wholly unacceptable conduct and could have justified summary dismissal if relied upon. Applying Polkey principles, however, it assessed only a 15% chance that the claimant would have been dismissed by 2 August 2020 if he had been appointed to the Chief Engineer/Chief Technologist role. No compensation figure was fixed in these liability reasons, and any basic award adjustment was left to the remedy hearing.