Member J Auld Tribunal Member J Grier Mr G Ocytko v Four Square (Scotland) Limited — 2021

The claimant, a driver employed from 11 December 2017, brought claims for breach of contract, disability discrimination, race discrimination, and automatically unfair dismissal for protected disclosures. The tribunal found that the contract term on pay provided only that salaries would be reviewed annually, not that the claimant was entitled to a pay rise, so the breach of contract claim failed.

On discrimination, the claimant led no evidence that he was treated less favourably because of race or disability. He did not put to the respondent's witnesses that they knew he was disabled, and the tribunal found there was no evidence that the respondent knew, or could reasonably have known, that he was a disabled person. It also found there were no facts from which an inference of race discrimination could be drawn.

The dismissal claim was based on alleged protected disclosures to OSCR and issues raised at the 18 October 2018 meeting. The tribunal accepted that the claimant had contacted OSCR and had raised issues at the meeting, but found it was not clear what disclosure was relied on and, in relation to OSCR, the claimant had asked a question rather than made a disclosure of information. Even if any protected disclosure had been made, the tribunal found the principal and only reason for dismissal was the 20 November 2018 incident at ELREC, for which the respondent had a genuine belief that the claimant had behaved inappropriately towards staff there.

The tribunal noted that the disciplinary process was not robust, including the absence of an investigatory meeting and the brevity of the appeal notes, but it concluded those matters did not show that the respondent's stated reason for dismissal was a sham. All claims were dismissed in their entirety, and no monetary award was made.