EAT VICTIM DISCRIMINATION – Protected disclosure
CONTRACT OF EMPLOYMENT – Mitigation
An Employment Tribunal held that when the Claimant wrote a letter complaining amongst several other matters in a tirade of vehement comment that staff had been bullied and harassed she had not been making a protected disclosure: because the letter had been written to undermine her line manager, out of feelings of antagonism toward her, it was for an ulterior purpose. The two grounds of appeal against this were dismissed: the first was that the Tribunal should have considered what the relative strengths of the motivations were which caused the Claimant to write the letter. It was held unnecessary that a Tribunal should do more than determine whether a disclosure was made ‘in good faith’ as that phrase had been interpreted in Street v Derbyshire Unemployed Workers Centre. The second was that an allegation of bad faith should have been put specifically to the Claimant not only at the hearing but sufficiently in advance of it so that she was not surprised by it when giving evidence. This was held unnecessary for a fair hearing, where the substance of the allegation was put in circumstances where the Claimant had a proper opportunity to rebut or explain it.
Citations:
[2010] UKEAT 0065 – 10 – 0712
Links:
Employment, Discrimination
Updated: 31 August 2022; Ref: scu.428058