Member: Ms P McColl Tribunal Member: Mr A Grant Miss D Smith v Represented by: Ms L Smith – Sister Home Appliance Engineers Ltd — 2022

The claimant started work with Home Appliance Engineers Ltd on 20 July 2021 doing administrative office work and was paid £250 a week after tax. She said she told Syma Iqbal on 16 August 2021 that she was pregnant, and the tribunal preferred the claimant's evidence on that issue. It also relied on the text sent by the claimant's mother on 23 August 2021, which referred to the recipient already knowing that the claimant was expecting, as further support for prior knowledge of the pregnancy.

On 24 August 2021, after the claimant texted that she was unfit to work, Ms Iqbal replied that she would need to let her go because there was not enough work for two people and the claimant was not very reliable. The tribunal rejected the respondent's explanation of lack of work and unreliability. It found the evidence from Ms Iqbal lacked credibility, that no warning had been given about attendance or timekeeping, and that the asserted attendance concerns were not supported by reliable evidence. The tribunal found that the immediate trigger for dismissal was the claimant's absences on 23 and 24 August 2021.

The tribunal concluded that those absences were caused by pregnancy-related illness. It noted that the claimant was later certified unfit for work from 26 August to 26 November 2021 with hyperemesis, and found on the balance of probabilities that the vomiting in the days before that diagnosis was more likely than not caused by that condition. It held that the claimant was dismissed because of illness suffered as a result of pregnancy, and therefore upheld the unfair dismissal claim under s99 ERA 1996 and the pregnancy discrimination claim under ss18(2)(b) and 39(2)(c) EqA 2010.

For remedy, the tribunal made no basic award because the claimant did not have sufficient service. It awarded one compensatory sum of £1,252.55 for loss of earnings, calculated by reference to Statutory Sick Pay for the 13-week period when the claimant was unfit for work, and said this was the same award under both statutory regimes to avoid double counting. It made no further loss-of-earnings award because the claimant had not looked for work after the fit-note period, and it awarded £5,000 for injury to feelings in the first Vento band, plus interest of £25.24 on the earnings loss and £201.51 on the injury-to-feelings award, giving a total award of £6,479.30.