Mr N Quelch v Courtiers Support Services Ltd — 2021

The claimant, Mr N Quelch, began work for Courtiers Support Services Ltd on 25 June 2018 and moved into compliance roles. From 18 March 2020 he worked from home, which the tribunal found he did successfully. He was living with a girlfriend who was clinically vulnerable, and when the respondent moved to a phased return to the office in May and June 2020 he was placed in phase 3. The tribunal found that, by late June and early July 2020, the claimant was asking to continue working from home until the government guidance changed, while the respondent was requiring him to return to the office on 6 July 2020. The tribunal also found that the phase 3 risk assessment envisaged 1 metre working without clearly identified additional mitigations, and that the respondent had not asked for evidence of the girlfriend's health condition or made the separate arrangement it later alleged had been offered.

The tribunal found that the respondent dismissed the claimant because he refused to return to the office on 8 July 2020, not because he had raised health and safety concerns. It held that automatic unfair dismissal succeeded under section 100(1)(d) and (e) ERA 1996, because the claimant genuinely and reasonably believed that returning created serious and imminent danger and that continuing to work from home was an appropriate step to protect himself and his girlfriend. The section 100(1)(c) limb, based on raising concerns, was not made out. The tribunal also held that ordinary unfair dismissal succeeded under section 98(4) ERA 1996: it was not reasonable to instruct him to return when he could work from home successfully and the government guidance at the time said people who could work from home should do so.

The tribunal further found detriment under section 44(1)(d) and (e) ERA 1996 when the respondent disabled the claimant's systems access and stopped his pay, and it found wrongful dismissal/breach of contract because he was dismissed without notice. It found an unauthorised deduction from wages for 8 July 2020 to 24 July 2020 in the amount of £1,595.08. On remedy, it awarded a basic award of £1,038.46 and a compensatory award of £500 for unfair dismissal, £7,155 for wrongful dismissal/breach of contract, £2,000 for injury to feelings in respect of the section 100 and section 44 breaches, and a 20% ACAS uplift, producing a total award of £14,746.25. The tribunal also recorded that the Employment Protection (Recoupment of Job Seeker's Allowance and Income Support) Regulations 1996 did not apply.