Ms Charlotte Stemp v Caleňo Drinks Limited — 2024

The Claimant, an Events Manager employed by the Respondent for approximately five months, was dismissed on stated grounds of redundancy with effect from 5 May 2023 while pregnant. She brought claims of direct pregnancy and maternity discrimination under s.18 of the Equality Act 2010 and of detriment on the grounds of pregnancy under s.47C of the Employment Rights Act 1996, complaining of unfavourable treatment in the form of performance criticisms at probationary reviews on 3 and 27 March 2023, a failure to carry out a second pregnancy risk assessment after her perinatal depression diagnosis, a failure to offer her alternatives to redundancy that were offered to others, and her dismissal itself.

The Tribunal accepted that the dismissal and certain comparative treatment amounted to unfavourable treatment or a detriment, but found that the Claimant had not established a prima facie case that any of the treatment was because of her pregnancy. It accepted that the redundancy exercise was genuine, driven by the Respondent's financial position and decisions about team size, the A&P budget and the relative newness of her role, and noted that further redundancies followed. The Tribunal also relied on the Claimant's own evidence that she did not at the time consider her pregnancy to be the reason for her dismissal, only raising it several months later after taking legal advice.

Applying the burden-of-proof approach in Royal Mail Group Ltd v Efobi and the inference framework in Amnesty International v Ahmed, the Tribunal found no basis to draw adverse inferences against the Respondent and held that, even if a prima facie case had been made out, the Respondent had provided reasonable non-discriminatory explanations. Both the s.18 EqA claim and the s.47C ERA 1996 detriment claim therefore failed and were dismissed, and the proposed remedy hearing of 25 November 2024 was vacated.