Miss S Watson v Integral Powertrain Limited — 2022

The tribunal accepted that Miss Watson was disabled within the Equality Act 2010 because of a back condition arising from a 2017 road traffic collision. It recorded that she was absent from 28 May 2019 to 16 July 2019, had an occupational health report dated 23 July 2019 recommending a supportive chair, later had an Access to Work assessment, and was then involved in a redundancy process in July and August 2020 before her dismissal on 7 August 2020.

The section 15 discrimination arising from disability claim failed on the facts. On the first three allegations, the tribunal found that Mr Hale did not attend the 16 July 2019 return-to-work interview, but did attend and speak to the claimant at the 19 July 2019 meeting. It did not accept that the alleged failure to ask how she was managing was unfavourable treatment because of something arising in consequence of disability, and it found no credible evidence for the later allegation that Mr Hale belittled her in a Teams meeting in or about April 2020. The tribunal also found that the comment attributed to Ms Beardmore-Baldwin about the company not wasting money was a reference to waiting for the occupational health assessment before buying a chair, and that asking the claimant to undertake wider technical buying work was part of a wider departmental request affecting other staff as well. The dismissal allegation failed because the claimant’s own evidence was that the dismissal was for redundancy.

The reasonable adjustments claim, which was confined to the alleged failure to provide a supportive chair, was dismissed for being out of time under section 123 Equality Act 2010. The tribunal held that time started to run when the occupational health report of 23 July 2019 recommended the chair, that the claim was not part of a series of connected acts, and that it was not just and equitable to extend time. It noted that the claimant did not start ACAS early conciliation until 12 October 2020 and did not present her claim until 8 December 2020.

On unfair dismissal, the tribunal found that the respondent dismissed the claimant for redundancy and that the dismissal was fair and reasonable in all the circumstances under section 98(4) Employment Rights Act 1996. It accepted that there had been concerns about the redundancy scoring matrix, but found that the respondent informed staff of the redundancy exercise, consulted with the claimant at three meetings, considered alternative vacancies, and that the claimant did not produce detailed and cogent evidence that she should have been scored higher than colleagues in the pool. Because all claims were dismissed, the tribunal did not consider remedy and made no award.