Mrs L M Miller Mr D Frew Mrs I Mulgrew v McAlpine & Company Limited — 2020

The claimant was employed by McAlpine & Company Limited as a General Operator on the twilight shift at Thornliebank. She had begun checking and inspection duties in April 2018, then was absent from work from June 2018 while receiving treatment for cancer and returned on a phased basis until 4 March 2019. The tribunal accepted that management later changed the twilight shift structure so that checking duties were absorbed into the new Charge Hand role, and it preferred Elizabeth Hunt's evidence where the parties' accounts conflicted.

On the indirect disability discrimination claim, the claimant said the respondent's grievance and appeal procedure, together with her lack of a handbook and the removal of checking duties, disadvantaged her because she had cancer. The tribunal found there was insufficient evidence that any relevant provision, criterion or practice put people with cancer at a particular disadvantage compared with people without that disability, and no persuasive evidence that the claimant had been prevented from progressing in the company or was otherwise disadvantaged as alleged. It noted that she had been able to apply for the Charge Hand post, and relied on Secretary of State for Trade and Industry v Rutherford & others in relation to the absence of group disadvantage. The tribunal therefore dismissed the discrimination claim and did not go on to decide the separate reasonable steps issue.

On victimisation, the tribunal accepted that the claimant had done protected acts by alleging discrimination and lodging a grievance in late May 2019. It found, however, that Elizabeth Hunt's reminder to report drug misuse in the workplace on 28 May 2019 was not a detriment and was not because of the complaint, and it accepted that her later concern on 17 September 2019 about the claimant working at a packing machine with her hair down was a health and safety matter rather than retaliatory treatment. The tribunal was not persuaded that the claimant had been singled out for adverse treatment because she had complained of discrimination, and it dismissed the victimisation claim.