Starford successfully defends an appeal at the EAT

EA-2023-000273-BA - Mr Ritson Ian v Milan Babic Architects Ltd 2305137/2020

We were delighted to represent this Respondent (MB Architects Ltd) at the Employment Appeal Tribunal last week having supported the Respondent to successfully defend the Claimant's claims at the Employment Tribunal early in 2023.

The background to these claims was the start of the pandemic in March 2020.  The Respondent is a small firm of architects and the owner of the business was understandably concerned at the impact that lockdown was likely to have on his business.  Due to the cancellation of projects and needing to cut overheads, he made the decision to dismiss two of his staff as redundant, both of whom had less than 2 years service.

The Claimant could not bring an unfair dismissal claim but decided, instead, to bring claims of:

automatic unfair dismissal because he said that he made a protected disclosure (whistleblowing complaint) and that was the reason for his dismissal; automatic unfair dismissal because he said that he was only selected for redundancy because he had made a protected disclosure; and that he had suffered a number of detriments because he had raised protected disclosures.

None of these claims required a minimum period of employment.

All of the claims were unanimously dismissed at the Employment Tribunal.

At the EAT the appeal was also dismissed.

The judge found that the first claim failed on causation grounds because the principal reason for dismissal was redundancy not the making of the alleged protected disclosures.

Similarly on the second claim the judge found that the selection for redundancy was because the Claimant was one of the highest earners in the firm and not because of making the alleged protected disclosures.

On the third ground the judge was very clear that the alleged protected disclosures did not satisfy the requirement that in order to have the protection afforded to whistleblowers, the disclosures had to be made in the public interest.  In this case, they were not.

We were grateful to Tim Dracass from Pump Court Chambers for his excellent advocacy, both at the ET and the EAT, and for his overall support. 

If you need support with unfair dismissal claims and employment tribunals, please contact our team on 01342 347063 or email hello@starfordlegalhr.com