Mrs R Marczykiewicz v Greentech-EU Ltd — 2023

The case proceeded under Rule 21 because the respondent did not lodge an ET3 or attend the hearing. The claimant gave evidence on her own and was accepted as honest. She had worked for Greentech-EU Ltd as a clerical assistant since 2014, was paid £1,100 gross per month, and after the breakdown of her marriage to Mr Czyba there were discussions through lawyers about the future of the business and her employment, but the Minute of Agreement referring to an end date in 2022 was not signed.

The tribunal found that the respondent ended the employment by issuing a P45 in September 2022 showing a termination date of 1 July 2022. The claimant had not resigned, and there had been no disciplinary, redundancy, performance, or absence-management process and no written or oral notice of termination. Applying sections 95 and 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the communication principle discussed in Miss A Sandle v Adecco UK Limited, the tribunal held that the dismissal was unfair. It awarded £2,030.77 for eight weeks' notice pay subject to tax and national insurance, a basic award of £3,046.18, and a compensatory award of £5,426.40, making a total award of £10,503.35.

On the discrimination claim, the tribunal accepted that Mr Czyba called the claimant lazy, greedy and a parasite when she asked for confirmation of her employment status, her P60 and payslips, and accepted that the conduct was unwanted and had the effect of humiliating her. Applying the narrow protection for marriage and the reasoning in Ellis v Bacon and another [2022] EAT 188, it found that the conduct was not because of the protected characteristic of marriage. The claim under sections 13 and 26 of the Equality Act 2010 was therefore dismissed. The claimant withdrew her claim for outstanding payments after confirming that the June and July 2022 wages had been paid, albeit late.