Member Mr Ashraf Tribunal Member Mr Haria Mrs T Shaw v Funeral Services Limited t/a: Co-Op Funeralcare — 2025

The claimant worked as a Funeral Arranger at the Shotts branch from 7 January 2008 until 25 February 2025. The respondent accepted that her type-2 diabetes was a disability under section 6 of the Equality Act 2010. After she reported being unwell with diabetes on 2 December 2024, she attended a meeting on 9 December 2024 about an A1 cremation form she had completed, admitted that she had signed the client's name and added initials, was suspended, and later raised grievances about the handling of that meeting and the notes of a later grievance call.

The tribunal held that the claimant's email of 30 December 2024 and grievance of 31 December 2024 were protected disclosures for the purposes of section 43B ERA 1996 because they raised a specific concern about a possible data protection breach and she reasonably believed there may have been jigsaw identification. The detriment claim nevertheless failed: Mr Fowler's 8 January 2025 email was aimed at investigating whether the claimant had breached her suspension terms by identifying the source of the notes, not at the disclosure itself, and Ms Davis's invitation to continue the investigation and her request for further medical clarification were found to be reasonable steps within the process, not detriments caused by the disclosures.

On constructive unfair dismissal, the tribunal rejected the alleged breaches of contract and trust and confidence. It found that Ms Miller did not refuse a request to check blood sugar on 9 December 2024, that the meeting ended when the claimant said she felt unwell, that the absence of an initial return-to-work interview was a timing decision rather than a breach, that the copied-over grievance note was a clerical error too minor to amount to a fundamental breach, and that the investigation process, the change of investigator and Mr Brown's treatment of the third grievance were within the discretion open to the respondent.

The tribunal also found that the claimant did not resign because of any breach by the respondent. It concluded that she resigned when she did because she knew the grievance process had ended without success and that the disciplinary hearing had been listed for 3 March 2025, with a real risk of dismissal. For that reason the constructive unfair dismissal claim failed, and the separate automatic unfair dismissal complaint also failed because the tribunal was not satisfied that there had been a dismissal at all.

The disability discrimination claims were dismissed. Applying Igen v Wong, the tribunal held that the direct discrimination allegations were not proved to be because of disability, including because Ms Miller did not know the claimant wanted to use her blood sugar app, the sick-pay and medical-evidence correspondence was generic, and the February 2025 emails would have been sent to any employee in the same position. The reasonable-adjustments claim failed because most alleged PCPs were not established and the one that was established did not place the claimant at a substantial disadvantage under section 20(3) EqA 2010. The harassment claim also failed because the conduct was either not proved, or was not related to disability, and the tribunal therefore dismissed all claims and said there was no need to consider remedy.