An employment tribunal has dismissed claims against high-profile class action specialist Pogust Goodhead – but the judge said the firm ‘might learn useful lessons’ from the case.
Employment judge Snelson ruled that, although claims of direct sex discrimination, direct disability discrimination, failure to make reasonable adjustments, victimisation and breach of contract were ‘sincerely brought’, they failed.
The firm set up a call centre from which agents would contact individuals who had signed up online for a diesel emissions claim but failed to complete a mini questionnaire in order to ask them for more information. The claimant, named as Miss S Guinee, was hired on a one-year fixed term, subject to a right to terminate without cause on payment in lieu of notice, as a client services supervisor at PGMBM Law Ltd, Pogust Goodhead’s parent. She started her role on 13 March 2023 but did not mention she had multiple sclerosis. She disclosed her MS diagnosis on 11 April 2023 in an email to head of HR Natasha Geraldo Baird.
That day, she was sent home after she ‘behaved generally in a manner which caused a degree of shock and alarm among the other persons present’. She was later dismissed and paid in lieu of notice.
The judge said: ‘We are satisfied that the information in Ms Gerardo Baird’s position concerning the claimant’s medical condition did not form any part of the reason for dismissal.
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‘We are entirely clear that there is no foundation whatever for the complaint of direct disability discrimination. The claimant was dismissed because of her behaviour on 11 April 2023, which was reasonably seen as extraordinary and alarming.’
Dismissing the sex discrimination complaint, the judgment said Guinee was dismissed by the person who had interviewed and appointed her only a month previously. It added: ‘The notion that he was disposed to discriminate against on her grounds of sex is entirely unsubstantiated. The sex discrimination complaint must be rejected.’
The reasonable adjustment and victimisation claims also failed. Referring to the breach of contract claim, the judgment said it was ‘obviously unsustainable’ as Guinee ‘was dismissed in accordance with her contract, under which the [firm] was at liberty to terminate on notice’.
In a postscript to the judgment, the judge said: ‘Although the respondent has succeeded in this litigation, it might learn useful lessons from this case. It was evident to us that, at the time when the call centre operation was launched, the respondent was not adequately prepared with staff, systems and processes in place to ensure full compliance with its employment relations obligations.’
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