EAT This complex appeal raised issues in 10 jurisdictions. Primarily the Claimants, who won unfair dismissal and sex discrimination and race discrimination claims, contended that their dismissals were tainted by the discrimination and that the finding in their favour on redundancy was incorrect. It was held that the Employment Tribunal correctly separated the decision-making and instead of applying a ‘but for’ test of causation properly sought to ask the reason why they were dismissed.
The Claimants were exceptionally allowed to argue a new point, conceded below, when the issue of shift allowance was reopended by the Respondent, and a Judgment made in their favour on construction of the conditions and the representations made to them.
The Employment Tribunal was wrong to award costs to the Claimants whose hearing had been aborted by the unreasonable conduct of the Respondent’s director. While the conduct was to be regarded as that of a party, costs under the 2001 Rules were not available to pay for non-legal representation.
JudgeMcMullen QC said: ‘What happens when one of Britain’s least impressive managements, by its sole consistent attribute of procrastination, drives two long-service Asian women to become uncooperative and dismissive? The answer is systemic race and sex discrimination against them and dismissals unfair according to every tenet in the canon, rightly found by an Employment Tribunal and wisely not appealed. Sophisticated employment procedures applicable to the two cases, collectively consulted on and agreed over the years, have been left in wreckage by the mismanagement over 15 years of no less than 101 HR professionals and managers, some disingenuous and blind to discrimination. It reached its nadir when its HR director, steering this organisation of 8,000 people, single-handedly by his misjudgement caused the hearing to be aborted after eight days at enormous cost to the women and to the public purse, with the result that they had to give their evidence all over again, one year later, before a different Employment Tribunal and at a different hearing centre. ‘
Judges:
McMullen QC
Citations:
[2006] UKEAT 0026 – 06 – 1711, UKEAT/0250/06, UKEAT/0026/06
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Selvarajan v Wilmot and others CA 23-Jul-2008
The appellant had employed the three claimants in his medical surgery, but they claimed automatic unfair dismissal when the practice closed on his suspension from practice and the statutory procedures were followed but not to the procedural . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment, Discrimination
Updated: 09 July 2022; Ref: scu.247847