Whistleblowing and the Need to Prove a Causal Link – Guideline Ruling

In order to succeed in a workplace whistleblowing claim, it is not enough merely to prove that you have made a protected disclosure. As one case showed, it is also necessary to establish a causal link between the disclosure and any detrimental treatment to which you have been…

Sep 20, 2021

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The case involved a senior employee in a bank’s audit department. In a draft report, she expressed concerns about the bank’s risk exposure arising from a certain legal agreement. There was no dispute that she had made a protected disclosure but the bank denied that it was that which prompted her subsequent dismissal.

The head of the bank’s legal department, who was responsible for the agreement, took strong exception to the employee’s views, considering them an attack on her integrity. There was a discussion and an exchange of emails between them and, prior to the employee’s dismissal, the head of the legal department raised the matter with the bank’s senior managers.

After the employee lodged Employment Tribunal (ET) proceedings, her complaint of ordinary unfair dismissal was upheld. The ET also found that one of her complaints of detrimental treatment, relating to the head of the legal department’s conduct, would have been successful had it not been brought too late. Her claim that she was dismissed for whistleblowing was rejected.

Dismissing her challenge to the latter ruling, the Employment Appeal Tribunal noted that the head of the legal department had not participated in the decision to dismiss her. The ET was entitled to conclude that, although the head of the legal department’s conduct towards her was influenced by the protected disclosure, the motivation of the managers who dismissed her was different.

There was no flaw in the ET’s conclusion that the managers were not motivated by the protected disclosure but by the view they took of the employee’s conduct towards the head of the legal department when they met, and in particular in a subsequent email. In their view, the employee had made an unacceptable personal attack on the head of the legal department’s abilities, which reflected a wider problem with the former’s interpersonal skills.

Service Charges Dispute Focuses on Report of ‘Intolerable’ Fire Risk

Tenants are only obliged to pay service charges that have been reasonably incurred. That principle was the focus of a guideline case concerning two apartment blocks which, according to an expert report, posed an intolerable fire risk. Previous fire inspections of the blocks had uncovered no serious problems so that the report, which found combustible materials in their external walls, came as a bolt from the blue. The landlord’s response was to place a 24-hour waking watch on the blocks as an…

EAT Upholds Dismissal of Racial Harassment Claim

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has rejected a man’s appeal against the dismissal of his claim for racial harassment on the grounds that the incident did not happen in the course of employment and that his employer had taken all reasonable steps to prevent it. The man worked for an NHS trust as branch secretary of a trade union. A colleague of his who had formerly been a member of the union went to his office during a break from work to discuss the fact that membership subscriptions were…

Lost Your Job Due to the Pandemic? You May Have Been Unfairly Dismissed

If you are amongst the cohort of workers who have been made redundant in the wake of the pandemic and feel that you have been treated unfairly, you should contact a solicitor without delay. In one case, a bar manager who was sacked without notice received thousands of pounds in compensation. After several months on furlough, the 58-year-old man, who had been employed at a hotel for six years, was asked to return to work to prepare for reopening. A few weeks later, however, he received a letter…