Miss C Graham v , Solicitor Eddie Stobart Limited — 2023

The respondent began a redundancy consultation in March 2022 to cease the planning function at Newhouse Depot and remove nine Planner roles, replacing them with four Transport Shift Manager roles. The claimant, a Planner who had notified her pregnancy in October 2021 and started maternity leave on 12 April 2022, expressed interest in the TSM roles and argued that she should be offered a suitable alternative vacancy without interview. The tribunal found there was a genuine redundancy exercise and that the TSM role was a broader management post with line management, disciplinary, accident, vehicle maintenance and wider compliance responsibilities. It held, applying the objective suitability exercise under regulation 10 MAPLE and the authorities cited, that the respondent had objective grounds to conclude the TSM role was not a suitable and appropriate vacancy for the claimant. The automatic unfair dismissal claims under section 99 ERA 1996 and regulation 20 MAPLE therefore failed, including the claims under regulations 20(1)(a), 20(1)(b) and 20(2).

The tribunal rejected the claimant's factual allegations that Ms Webster had made disparaging remarks at the 1 April 2022 consultation meeting, that the 30 March email was hostile criticism, that the consultation discussion was dismissive, or that Mr Delaney had simply said she was unsuccessful because of experience without further explanation. It accepted that the respondent had scored the candidates for the TSM roles and found that the claimant was given a substantially lower score than the successful applicants because she had less relevant management experience and her interview answers were weaker. On that basis, the tribunal dismissed the remaining detriment allegations tied to those events.

The tribunal did find that the respondent should have done more once the claimant told Ms Webster and later Ms Saunders that she had submitted a grievance about the way she had been treated. Although the grievance emails had been caught by the respondent's Mimecast system, the tribunal found that did not explain the later failure to follow up once the claimant had clearly said she was pursuing a grievance and was on maternity leave. That failure amounted to a detriment under section 47C ERA and regulation 19 MAPLE, and also to unfavourable treatment because of pregnancy/maternity under section 18 Equality Act 2010. The victimisation claim failed because the tribunal held that the claimant's earlier complaints were about rights under regulation 10 MAPLE rather than protected acts under the Equality Act. The tribunal awarded £10,000 for injury to feelings, assessed at the lower end of the middle Vento band, and made no separate award of financial loss.