REWARD
What’s classed as unfair dismissal?
Dan Carder, Human Resources Content Consultant, Peninsula, shares details of recent employment law cases which considered whether claimants were unfairly dismissed
“The Employment Tribunal had to consider whether the dismissal of a pregnant employee suffering from morning sickness was discriminatory and automatically unfair”
Pregnant employee suffering from morning sickness was unfairly dismissed In the case of Miluska v Roman Property Group Ltd and others, the Employment Tribunal (ET) had to consider whether the dismissal of a pregnant employee suffering from morning sickness was discriminatory and automatically unfair. The claimant was employed by the respondent as a property consultant. They became pregnant and suffered from morning sickness. On one occasion, the claimant needed to leave work early because of sickness due to their pregnancy and they informed Mr Kabir, of the respondent company, by text message. It was agreed via text message that the claimant would work from home. The claimant was advised by their midwife to work from home for the next two weeks. Mr Kabir subsequently sent the claimant a text message asking if they would be able to work from the office on certain days the following week. The claimant replied saying they didn’t think they would be able
to work from home, never mind the office, due to their morning sickness. A few days later, Mr Kabir sent a further text message to the claimant which included: “will need to try and find someone to be in the office as we’re falling behind on work, I just want to say I hope you don’t take it personally or see us as bad, but we are really struggling”. The message ended with a “jazz hands” smiley. The claimant received no further payments from the respondent after the date of this text message. In the judgment of the ET, it said that the deliberately vague text message was written to dress up the bad news being delivered to the claimant. It was objectively clear the text message was bringing the
employment relationship between the claimant and the respondent company to an end. The ET concluded that the text message was “seriously meant” to be a dismissal and upheld the claim for automatic unfair dismissal. The claimant was dismissed when they read the text message dismissing them and this was the effective date of termination. The dismissal was also found to be discriminatory due to unfavourable treatment because of illness as a result of the claimant’s pregnancy. The claimant was awarded compensation for failure to provide: l a statement of terms and conditions of employment
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | May 2025 | Issue 110 40
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