All posts tagged Employment Tribunal

Liability for Bad Reference, Employment Tribunal Case

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Employment Solicitors Trethowans look at a recent Employment Tribunal case regarding Employment references.

A case this month considered whether a past employer could be liable for the future loss of earnings caused by providing a bad reference.

The Claimant in the case of Bullimore v Pothecary Witham Weld Solicitors and Another had previously brought a claim for sex discrimination against her past employer. A prospective employer requested a reference from the previous employer, who provided a reference which referred to the sex discrimination claim and stated that the employee had a “poor relationship” with the firm’s partners and could be “inflexible in her opinions”. As a result of this reference, the prospective employer did not employ the employee.

The employee brought a claim against the prospective employer, as well as the past employer. The prospective employer settled prior to the hearing. The Tribunal considered that the prospective employer’s unlawful action of rejecting the employee on the basis of the reference broke the chain of causation so that the past employer was not liable. The EAT reversed the Tribunal’s decision and considered that it was foreseeable that the prospective employer would react as it did. As a matter of fairness, the past employer should be liable for the result of its actions. The case has now been re-submitted to the Tribunal to consider the level of damages to be awarded.

Many employees now have a policy of only providing factual references. The above case is a classic example of the dangers in going beyond a purely factual reference. In our view, the risks are not worth running.

Abbey National Santander Demonstrates The Uphill Battle In Suing Your Employer

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The uphill battle and intense stress in suing your employer is demonstrated by the high-profile Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins (2006) legal case in the UK, where the Employment Tribunal found race discrimination and subsequently ordered Santander Abbey National to pay the record breaking 2.8 million compensation award. Abbey National Santander Group (the Spanish-owned UK high street bank which will soon be re-branded as Santander share price, and is part of the massive Banco Santander Group) terminated Balbinder Chagger’s employment in 2006, asserting redundancy as the reason. Mr Chagger believed that the real reason behind his dismissal was race discrimination. Santander Abbey National Group employed Mr Chagger (of Indian origin) as a Trading Risk Controller. He was paid about 100,000 per annum and he reported into Nigel Hopkins.

An employee who has suffered discrimination at work could decide to challenge his employer. The challenge may be initiated in the form of a formal grievance. The employee raises the grievance formally with the employer. The employer is responsible for hearing the grievance and deciding its outcome. The employer is, thus, given the opportunity to deal with the employment dispute and to bring it to a satisfactory end. The Employment Tribunal that heard the Abbey Santander price case found that Mr Chagger had attempted to resolve the issues around his dismissal directly with Abbey National and Mr Hopkins, via the company’s own complaints and grievance procedures. The Employment Tribunal also found, however, that Mr Chagger’s issues were simply dismissed out of hand.

If the employee remains dissatisfied with the employer’s handling of the grievance, then he must initiate legal action in order to persevere with his challenge. Mr Chagger, being dissatisfied with the outcome of his grievances, eventually initiated legal proceedings against both Abbey National Santander and Mr Hopkins on the grounds of race discrimination and unfair dismissal, thus, escalating the dispute to the attention of the Employment Tribunal.

An employer (especially a large and powerful organisation such as a major bank) is likely to be a formidable opponent for most employees, possessing vastly superior levels of financial resources, experience of dealing with disputes, legal expertise and plenty time to devote to the challenge.

In stark contrast, the employee will be relatively poor in financial resources, experience and legal expertise, will be hindered by personal circumstances and commitments, and have to make time to devote to the challenge while he also goes about discharging his obligation of mitigating his loss stemming from the discrimination he has suffered. He may also be further hindered by the low economic value of his challenge (the rewards less the costs), and be discouraged by the prospect of being shunned by prospective employers for having brought a legal action against an employer (whether he wins or loses).

The employer may exercise its superiority ruthlessly, without any remorse, in its attempts to coerce the employee into giving up his challenge for as little as possible. To persevere with legal action against such a formidable opponent requires the employee to possess an amazing level of resolve and lots of disposable cash.

Even though the employer might be holding significant advantages and be ruthless, a genuine challenge supported by appropriate evidence has the possibility to be successful, as shown by Mr Chagger who satisfied the Employment Tribunal that Mr Hopkins and Santander Abbey National had unlawfully discriminated against him on the grounds of race in his dismissal. In order to remedy the wrongs of race discrimination and unfair dismissal that Abbey Santander had committed, the Employment Tribunal ordered it to reinstate Mr Chagger. However, Santander Abbey refused to comply with the Employment Tribunal’s reinstatement order.

Despite Mr Chagger’s challenge being genuine and successful, his experience was that other prospective employers shunned him for having brought a legal action against an employer. This, along with Santander Abbey National’s refusal and failure to comply with the Employment Tribunal’s reinstatement order, subsequently led to the record breaking 2.8 million compensation award.

Even if the employee’s legal challenge is successful, the employer may appeal against the Tribunal’s decision and, thus, continue to prolong the employee’s challenge and to erode its economic value through additional legal costs. In 2008, Santander Abbey National and Mr Hopkins continued the legal case by appealing against the Employment Tribunal’s finding of racial discrimination and 2.8 million compensation award. The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) that heard the appeals upheld the original Employment Tribunal’s finding that Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger in his dismissal. However, the EAT overturned the Employment Tribunal’s 2.8 million compensation award and sent it back to the original Employment Tribunal for reconsideration.

Even where the issue of the wrong committed has been closed off, the employer may continue to be ruthless in its handling of the issue of remedy/compensation. The Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins case did not end at the EAT stage. This year, 2009, the case was appealed to the Court of Appeal (the second highest court in the UK). The Court of Appeal’s List of Hearings showed that the appeal was listed for hearing on 7 and 8 July 2009. The Court’s judgement and records of the hearing were not available at the time of writing this article. The King’s Walk Bench set of barristers’ chambers, who represented Santander Abbey and Mr Hopkins, had reported that the Court of Appeal hearing was only about compensation (not racial discrimination also). That would suggest that the wrong of racial discrimination committed by Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins has been finalised by the EAT (which upheld the original Employment Tribunal’s decision that Santander Abbey National and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger in his dismissal), and that Mr Chagger has appealed against the EAT’s decision to send back the 2.8 million compensation award to the Employment Tribunal stage for reconsideration.

As can be seen, winning a discrimination case against a powerful employer is far from easy: it is highly risky and intensely stressful, possibly spanning across many years. The employee should try to have regard for the economic value of his challenge and base his decisions with reference to it, because if the challenge is purely based on principles (no matter how admirable they may be) or spite, then he should prepare to lose lots of money.

Ethical Behaviour Risk Factors Lessons From Emilio Botin Abbey Santander 2009

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Some of the factors that increase the risk of unethical behaviour in organisations are illustrated by the high-profile legal case Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins (2006), in which the Employment Tribunal made a finding of unlawful racial discrimination and (further to Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group’s refusal to comply with the Tribunal’s order to reinstate Mr Chagger) ordered Abbey Banco Santander share to pay Mr Chagger the record-breaking 2.8 million compensation for his loss. Abbey Santander share price (the UK bank soon to be re-branded as Santander banking group, and part of the global Emilio Botin Banco Santander Central Hispano Group – BSCH) dismissed Mr Chagger from his employment in 2006, giving a fair redundancy as the reason. However, Mr Chagger believed that the actual reason behind the termination of his employment was unfairness and race discrimination. Mr Chagger was of Indian origin. He worked for Emilio Botin Abbey Santander finance as a Trading Risk Controller, earning about 100,000 a year, and reporting into Nigel Hopkins.

Some ethical behaviour risk factors illustrated by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander 2009 clearly relate to the pursuit of personal goals; the Employment Tribunal found that Mr Hopkins personally desired Mr Chagger’s employment with Abbey Santander share price to be terminated, had pre-planned that Mr Chagger would be dismissed, and had used the compulsory redundancy process as a means to dismiss Mr Chagger, in an unfair and discriminatory manner.

One such factor increasing the risk of unethical behaviour is the amount of discretion an organisation allows its officers; the greater the discretion allowed, the greater the opportunity the officer has for acting in his personal interests. The Employment Tribunal found that the redundancy selection criteria Abbey Santander had permitted Mr Hopkins to apply in assessing and judging the two employees up for redundancy were highly subjective and un-measurable; they afforded Mr Hopkins a very wide discretion. The Employment Tribunal criticised Mr Hopkins for the way in which he had applied that discretion (i.e., for his own interests). As an example, Mr Hopkins had criticised and scored Mr Chagger lower for getting on with work and being self-reliant. The Employment Tribunal thought that other reasonable managers would consider such qualities to be valuable assets, considering Mr Chagger’s highly paid and highly responsible job, and praise and score him highly for. As a further example, during the redundancy process, Mr Hopkins had criticised Mr Chagger on numerous points that Mr Chagger had never been criticised for prior to the redundancy exercise. All the criticisms were inconsistent with previous company records of Mr Chagger’s performance. The Employment Tribunal ruled that the criticisms were unfair not legitimate.

Another such factor increasing the risk of unethical behaviour is the level of autonomy of decision-making and action an organisation allows its officers; the greater the level of autonomy, the greater the opportunity the officer has for acting in his personal interests. The Tribunal found that Mr Hopkins was entirely single-handedly able to advise Abbey’s management to dismiss one of the two Trading Risk Controllers that he managed (of which Mr Chagger was one), was entirely single-handedly able to make Mr Chagger an offer of voluntary redundancy (Mr Chagger refused the offer, and never was an equivalent offer ever made to the other Trading Risk Controller), was entirely single-handedly able to judge and score the two employees up for redundancy, and was entirely single-handedly able to lower Mr Chagger’s redundancy scores to guarantee that he would be the one who would be selected for dismissal.

A different type of factor also increasing the risk of unethical behaviour is the organisation’s focus; a focus on results rather than processes can imply that the ends justify the means. The UK statutory Code of Practice on Racial Policy in Employment provides organisations with guidance concerning good practices and processes. The Employment Tribunal found that Abbey Banco Santander had failed to comply with those processes. Abbey Grupo Santander had failed to comply with the statutory guidance regarding Equal Opportunity training. Mr Chagger had tried to resolve the issues of unfairness and race discrimination around his dismissal directly with Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins, through the company’s grievance procedures. Santander Abbey had not provided any Equal Opportunity training to any of the managers it had assigned to decide on Mr Chagger’s issues. Not even one manager upheld Mr Chagger’s issues; his issues were simply dismissed out of hand. Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group had also failed to comply with the statutory guidance concerning monitoring procedures. The Tribunal found a multitude of monitoring failures (far too many to outline here), as well as the failures to give serious consideration to allegations of racial discrimination and to investigate them promptly.

In 2008, Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) against the original Employment Tribunal’s ruling of racial discrimination; the EAT upheld the original Tribunal’s ruling that both Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger. Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had also appealed against the record-breaking 2.8 million compensation award; the EAT accepted Abbey Santander’s appeal on the compensation award and remitted it to the original Tribunal for reconsideration. In 2009, matters were escalated to the Court of Appeal (the second highest court in the UK). The Court’s List of Hearings showed that the case was heard on 7 and 8 July 2009. The Court’s records of the hearing were not available at the time of writing this article. The 11KBW set of barristers’ chambers, who represented Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins, had reported prior to the hearing that the it was to be about quantum only (i.e., compensation) and not about liability (i.e., not about the wrong committed of race discrimination). That would seem to suggest that the wrong of race discrimination committed by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Nigel Hopkins was finalised by the EAT when it upheld that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger, and that Mr Chagger had appealed against the EAT’s ruling to send the compensation award back to the Employment Tribunal stage for reconsideration.

Employment Law – Dealing With Employee Absence

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It is your duty as an employer to keep a close eye on your employee’s absences from work. This is for two main reasons; firstly, to ensure that your business does not suffer due to staff absence and secondly, to ensure that your staff are well, healthy and happy.

Every company should keep a record of employee absence. Keeping this record will help you identify any emerging patterns of absence or alert you to a member of staff suffering from a long-term illness. Each department within your business should keep its own records, you are then able to compare company absence from sector to sector. Employee absences records should always be managed in light of the Date Protection Act (1998). Any records of employee absence should then be destroyed after 3 years (of the financial in which it was made) and if you are monitoring any statistics then employees should be made aware.

If a pattern of absence appears which is inter-departmental, i.e. one department has a considerably higher level of absence, then you should take the appropriate steps into looking at that departments working environment. Not only this but you should look to your senior members of staff to report on issues within the department, which could be causing the higher levels of absence.

Another good procedure to implement is the ‘return to work interview’. This face-to-face meeting should be done in private with the relevant line manager for that employee. The interview has several purposes; it details why the employee was off work, if they are suffering from something which may cause further absence and most importantly if they are well enough to come back to work. It can also provide the employee with a private outlet to complain about their working environment and/or fellow staff members, which incidentally could be causing their absence.

If you do not deal with employee absence at an early stage you run the risk of the following occurring:

– Low staff esteem due to increased workloads in covering the absent colleague

– Agency staff bills being extraordinarily high

– The company failing to reach targets or provide a good service due to a lack of consistent staffing

In order to deal with an emerging absence pattern there are some steps you can take to ensure that you investigate the problem scrupulously. Firstly, you should compare the employee’s absence over your last 3 years of records to establish any recurring pattern. Secondly, compare the employee’s absence record to that of the other employee’s within the same department, this may identify a work related issue. Lastly, check that the employee does not have an illness which fits the criteria of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The area of disability discrimination is particular complex — don’t risk being grounds for a potentially highly expensive disability discrimination claim — take advice from expert employment solicitors first.

For the first few absences the employee needs to be dealt with amicably. Discuss with the employee the reasons why they have had continued absences or absences which form a pattern. Solutions such as flexible working arrangements, changing work location or job description can offer lower cost results for you and the employee.

If no solution can be found or the problem is merely unauthorised absence, then you have the option of disciplining the employee under capability and/or conduct. An approved disciplinary handling procedure should be used at this time.

If you are in any doubt as to the reason for the employee’s absence or the grounds upon which you are starting the disciplinary procedures, then you should seek legal advice immediately from specialist employment solicitors. A dismissal based upon an employee’s absence has to be legal and if it is not you could face claims of an unfair dismissal via the Employment Tribunal.

Perhaps the very simplest step is to make sure that you have clear policies on employee absence. If you don’t and you are not sure where to begin, contact specialist Employment Solicitors who should be able to provide you with appropriate policies dealing with employee absence at a relatively modest cost.

Importance Of Race Relation Act Questionnaire Rr65 Demonstrated By Banco Santander Group

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The importance of the Race Relations Act Questionnaire RR65 is highlighted by the high-profile Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins (2006) UK legal case, where the Employment Tribunal made a finding of race discrimination, which subsequently led to the record-breaking compensation award of 2.8 million. In 2006, Abbey National Santander Group (the Spanish-owned UK high street bank which will soon be re-branded as Santander, and is part of the Banco Santander Group) terminated Balbinder Chagger’s employment, giving redundancy as the reason. Mr Chagger believed, however, that the real reason behind his dismissal was race discrimination. Santander Abbey National Group employed Mr Chagger (who was of Indian origin) as a Trading Risk Controller and paid him about 100,000 per annum. He reported into Nigel Hopkins.

Employees who believe they have suffered race discrimination at work and are considering pursuing legal action may serve a Race Relations Act Questionnaire RR65 upon the employer. The Race Relations Act Questionnaire RR65 procedure is set out in the Race Relations Act (Questions and Replies) Order 1977.

The employee serves his questionnaire upon the employer via form RR65. It contains some standard questions, such as to what extend does the employer concur with the employee’s version of events, what is the employer’s version of events, and does the employer accept that the employee has suffered discrimination (and if not, then why not). The employee may attach his own specific questions to the end of the standard questions.

The serving of a Race Relations Act Questionnaire RR65 is not a necessary step in dealing with the discrimination via formal legal proceedings; it is optional. But, it is a step that gives the employee a unique chance to collect evidence in support of his case (because it permits the inclusion of questions of an exploratory nature), as well as, to obtain further information useful in deciding whether to proceed with legal action or not. Therefore, the employee should seriously consider serving a questionnaire, and design the questions to uncover evidence that proves race discrimination which is known only to the employer, uncover fully the employer’s case, and ascertain which facts are accepted by the employer and which are in dispute.

The employer must respond to the questionnaire in writing within a reasonable time period (8 weeks from the date the of receipt). The employer’s answers can be submitted as evidence before an Employment Tribunal. The employer does not have to answer the questionnaire, and cannot be ordered to respond to it by an Employment Tribunal. But, failure to respond within the time limit and/or ambiguous or evasive responses may be held against the employer. Where an Employment Tribunal believes the employer deliberately and without good reason did not respond within the time limit and/or the responses were evasive or ambiguous, the Race Relations Act 1976 allows the Employment Tribunal to draw any adverse inferences it considers just and equitable, including the inference that the employer committed an unlawful act of discrimination. Thus, an Employment Tribunal could make a finding of race discrimination based solely on the adverse inferences it has drawn regarding the questionnaire; although, in reality, it is unlikely to do that, it could decide to take a serious stance on the employer’s failure to respond properly and be persuaded by it, along with other evidence. The chance of the Employment Tribunal drawing adverse inferences will be increased if the employee had asked reasonable questions and had made efforts to chase the employer and encouraged it to respond properly. The employer will not know the consequences of its failures before it faces the Employment Tribunal, at which time it may be too late for the employer to make good any failings. Thus, an employee who avails himself of the questionnaire procedure automatically gains this tactical advantage.

Such was the situation Santander Abbey National had got itself into. The Employment Tribunal found that Abbey Santander had failed in answering Mr Chagger’s questionnaire. Mr Chagger had asked Santander Abbey National to supply details of legal actions of racial discrimination brought against it since 1 January 2001. Abbey Santander responded with 17 citations of incidents. In respect of 6 of them, dating from 2001 and 2002, Santander Abbey National simply stated that the outcomes of the actions were unknown and that it was unable to obtain information regarding the outcomes during the time period in which the questionnaire had to be responded to; no further answers were ever provided to Mr Chagger. The Employment Tribunal concluded that Santander Abbey National’s response was evasive. Its failure to answer the questionnaire, along with the other evidence in the case, satisfied the Employment Tribunal that Mr Hopkins and Abbey National Santander had discriminated against Mr Chagger on the grounds of race in his dismissal.

The serving of a Race Relations Act Questionnaire RR65 by the employee does not in itself start off any legal proceedings; the initiation of legal proceedings requires a separate procedure. If no legal proceedings are ever initiated, then the employee’s questionnaire and the employer’s responses remain a private matter between the employer and employee. If the employee is seriously contemplating legal action based on the other evidence that suggests race discrimination, then serving a Race Relations Act Questionnaire would be appropriate, because the employer’s response may help the employee to decide. But, if the employee does not have any serious intentions regarding legal action, then to serve a questionnaire would be inappropriate because doing so may unnecessarily vex the employer and/or the responses may affect the employee emotionally into pursuing a legal action he didn’t intend to pursue.

The Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins case did not end at the Employment Tribunal stage. In 2008, it was appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT). This year, 2009, the case was appealed to the Court of Appeal (being the second highest court in the land). The Court of Appeal’s List of Hearings showed that the appeal was heard on 7 and 8 July 2009. The Court’s records and judgement of the hearing were not available at the time of writing this article. The 11KBW set of barristers’ chambers had reported that the Court of Appeal hearing was only about compensation (not racial discrimination as well). So, this would seem to suggest that the wrong of race discrimination committed by Abbey National Santander and Nigel Hopkins has been settled by the EAT (it had upheld the original Employment Tribunal’s finding that Mr Hopkins and Santander Abbey National had discriminated against Mr Chagger on the grounds of race in his dismissal).