Case 4105224/2022 · Employment Tribunal
Tribunal Member Fiona Paton Tribunal Member Robin Taggart Mr George Gallacher v -15 Trainee Solicitor JOA Leisure Limited — 2023
- Case reference
- 4105224/2022
- Decision date
- 2 August 2023
- Jurisdiction
- Scotland
- Judge
- Employment Judge Ian McPherson
- Venue
- person at Glasgow
- Panel members
- Fiona Paton, Robin Taggart
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Tribunal Member Fiona Paton Tribunal Member Robin Taggart Mr George Gallacher
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe tribunal held that the claimant's employer was JOA Leisure Limited, trading as Flip Out Glasgow, and dismissed Flip Out Limited under Rule 34. It found that the claimant was employed as General Manager from 6 November 2016 until 29 June 2022, and that later correspondence sometimes used Flip Out UK terminology, but that did not alter the legal identity of the employer.
The tribunal found that the claimant made a protected disclosure on 21 April 2022 in a collective grievance sent to Matthew Melling. The grievance raised issues said to concern TUPE, bonus arrangements, pension contributions, and related contractual terms. The tribunal held that the disclosure was made to the employer, that the word whistleblowing did not need to appear for protection to arise, and that the statutory public interest requirement was satisfied.
On liability, the tribunal upheld the whistleblowing detriment claim. It accepted that the claimant was exposed to a re-set and redundancy process, that his grievance and appeal were rejected, and that his bonus arrangements were changed after the disclosure. It also held that the dismissal was unfair under section 98 because the respondents had not shown that the claimant was genuinely redundant, and that the dismissal was also automatically unfair under section 103A because the protected disclosure was the principal reason for dismissal. The tribunal noted that it did not hear evidence from Mr Perry, who made the dismissal decision, or Mr Beese, who heard the appeal.
On remedy, the tribunal awarded no basic award because the statutory redundancy payment of £4,282.50 reduced it to nil. It awarded a compensatory award of £54,927.46 for unfair dismissal, with a prescribed element of £32,485.08 and an excess of £22,442.38 for recoupment purposes, and £15,000 for injury to feelings on the whistleblowing detriment claim. It declined any ACAS uplift or downlift, declined to impose a financial penalty under section 12A, and grossed the total to £81,318.26.
Claims and outcomes
3 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal | Ordinary unfair dismissal under section 98 upheld. The tribunal found that the respondents had not shown a genuine redundancy and had not fairly dismissed the claimant for that reason. It also held that the same dismissal was automatically unfair under section 103A because the protected disclosure was the principal reason for dismissal. The dismissal compensation was not split separately between the section 98 and section 103A findings. | Upheld | — | £54,927 |
| Unfair dismissal | Automatically unfair dismissal under section 103A upheld. The tribunal found that the protected disclosure was the principal reason for the dismissal. No separate monetary figure was split out for this head, because the dismissal compensation was awarded once overall. | Upheld | — | — |
| Whistleblowing | Whistleblowing detriment under section 47B upheld. The tribunal accepted that the collective grievance of 21 April 2022 amounted to a protected disclosure and that the claimant was subjected to detriments including the re-set and redundancy process, rejection of the grievance and appeal, and changes to bonus arrangements. The award was for injury to feelings. | Upheld | — | £15,000 |
Remedy
Monetary award- Total award
- £81,318
- across all upheld claims
- Basic award
- £0
- statutory, unfair dismissal
- Compensatory award
- £54,927
- compensatory remedy recorded
Legal tests applied
8 references- s.98(4) ERA 1996
- s.139 ERA 1996
- Martin v London Borough of Southwark 5-stage test
- Chesterton Global v Nurmohamed public interest test
- Vento bands
- Slade & Hamilton v Biggs 4-stage ACAS uplift test
- s.207A TULRCA 1992
- s.12A Employment Tribunals Act 1996
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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