Ms Murielle Maupoint v Hope for Children — 2022

The tribunal considered a dispute arising from H4C’s proposed merger with EAP in 2019. It found that the claimant, Ms Murielle Maupoint, wrongly assumed that there had been a binding board decision requiring the H4C trustees to be reduced to five before the merger, when the articles of association required unanimity for a written resolution and that had not been achieved. On the facts found, Neil Robertson was not trying to obstruct the merger but was trying to address reservations raised by trustees about how the board should be constituted.

The tribunal rejected the claimant’s whistleblowing case. It held that the 30 and 31 May 2019 communications, the 11 June 2019 grievance and the 23 July 2019 grievance were not protected disclosures within s.43B ERA 1996. In particular, the claimant did not have a reasonable belief that Mr Robertson was using false information or obstructing a majority board decision, and the later grievance could not be read together with the earlier communications as a protected disclosure under the approach in Norbrook. The tribunal therefore dismissed the detriment claims and the claim under s.103A ERA 1996 for dismissal because of protected disclosures.

Most of the alleged detriments were rejected on the facts. The tribunal found that the board meeting arrangements, the leave complaint, the anonymous tip-off email, and the July correspondence about return-to-work issues did not amount to detriments in the legal sense. It did, however, find that the claimant’s suspension on 26 July 2019 and the disclosure to a former employee that she had been suspended were detriments. Those acts were not found to be because of a protected disclosure, but the tribunal did find that the suspension was in response to the grievance against Amanda Neylon.

The tribunal held that the suspension and the disclosure of it to a former employee breached the implied term of mutual trust and confidence and amounted to a repudiatory breach of contract during the notice period. It found that the claimant’s earlier resignation on 5 July 2019 was not caused by respondent conduct, but that she was entitled to resign immediately on 29 July 2019 because of the later breach. The opening holding records that she was unfairly and wrongfully dismissed on 29 July 2019. Remedy was not determined in this judgment and was left to the later hearing.