Ms L Grime Mr R Henderson Held in Edinburgh on and December 2022 v Mrs Hogg Crummock Surfacing Limited . — 2023

The claimant brought claims for unfair dismissal and direct age discrimination, but the tribunal stated that the only claim within its jurisdiction to decide was direct age discrimination under s.13 Equality Act 2010. The claimant was 62 at the time of dismissal. She had started work in January 2021 doing purchase ledger and administrative tasks for the respondent, initially described in the contract as a three-month arrangement, although the tribunal recorded that no-one discussed any extension and Mr Nield said he did not intend it to be a temporary post.

In early 2022 the respondent decided to reorganise the work. Mr Nield decided to take back his own GRN and purchase ledger work as the new accounts software was complete and his workload had become more manageable, and Ms Kennedy was to take on a different set of administrative and buying tasks. The tribunal found that the decision to make the claimant redundant was taken by Mr Nield with Mr Blyth, and that neither Mr Hogg nor Mr Kennedy was involved in that decision. It also found that Mr Blyth did not follow Mr Nield’s instructions about how to communicate the decision and sent an email that wrongly referred to the claimant as being on a temporary contract.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant genuinely believed her dismissal was because of her age, particularly after Mr Blyth said he thought she was nearing retirement. It also accepted that the email and subsequent response from Mr Boyes misdescribed aspects of the claimant’s appointment and did not address the age discrimination allegation in detail, which left the claimant under a misapprehension about the reason for redundancy. However, the tribunal found that these matters did not show that age influenced the decision itself.

Applying the authorities it cited, including Shamoon, Nagarajan, London Borough of Islington v Ladele, Brown v Croydon LBC and Igen v Wong, the tribunal concluded that the reason for the redundancy was a genuine business reorganisation and not the claimant’s age. It found that Ms Kennedy was not a suitable comparator because her work was materially different, and that even a hypothetical younger comparator in the claimant’s role would also have been made redundant. The age discrimination claim was therefore dismissed and no remedy was awarded.