Employment tribunal and court judgments | June 2025

Mr. Handa, a director and employee of The Station Hotel (Newcastle) Ltd (SHNL), alleged that his dismissal was a consequence of making protected disclosures about financial improprieties within the company. He claimed that two external HR consultants, Mr. Duncan and Ms. McDougall, were co-liable for his dismissal, asserting they acted as agents of SHNL and subjected him to detriment due to his whistleblowing activities.

The Claimant claimed, in his initial pleadings, that Mr Duncan and Ms McDougall were both liable for his dismissal as Station Hotel’s agents but did not elaborate on the legal or factual basis for that contention and did not allege that they carried out the dismissal, either solely or jointly.

At a public preliminary hearing, the Employment Tribunal struck out Mr Handa’s claims against Mr Duncan and Ms McDougall for having no reasonable prospect of success. It held that the factual basis for concluding that either Mr Duncan or Ms McDougall were Station Hotel’s agents was so weak that an arguable case could not be established.

Mr Handa appealed.

The EAT upheld the Employment Tribunal’s decision, clarifying the legal limits of the HR consultants’ liability in this case:

• Consultants can, in principle, act as agents for the employer. But to be liable, they must themselves commit an act or omission which harms the Claimant (i.e. the dismissal in this case).
• Neither consultant had decided upon or implemented the dismissal (alone or jointly) and a decision on dismissal was not within their remit.
• Allegations that the Station Hotel had exerted control over their processes did not provide a basis for holding either of them liable as agents for the dismissal.

This case highlights several key considerations for employers when engaging external HR consultants in grievance investigations, misconduct investigations, or dismissal procedures including outlining the scope of authority and responsibilities of external HR consultants in contractual agreements to prevent ambiguity regarding decision-making powers, and maintaining thorough records of the consultants’ and the company’s roles, findings, and recommendations, as well as in relation to the decision-making processes.

Mr. Andrew Woodhead, formerly the Managing Director of WTTV Ltd, was informed in November 2019 of sexual harassment complaints against him made by a freelance writer, referred to as NPQ. Subsequently, Mr Woodhead was suspended and later dismissed on grounds of redundancy in May 2020. Mr. Woodhead, who had a history of psychiatric conditions, including depression and anxiety, claimed that the manner in which WTTV Ltd handled the disciplinary process exacerbated his mental health issues.

Mr. Woodhead brought claims in the High Court against WTTV Ltd for:

1. Negligence: Alleging that the employer breached its duty of care by mishandling the disciplinary process, leading to psychiatric injury; and
2. Misuse of Private Information: Contending that NPQ’s disclosure of his private information constituted a breach of privacy, for which the employer was vicariously liable.

Mr Woodhead succeeded with his negligence complaint, however the High Court dismissed a claim for misuse of private information concluding that the disclosure was proportionate to the complainant’s legitimate objective.

Four key elements to the negligence claim succeeding are as follows:

1. Claims for psychiatric injury arising from employment will not succeed unless it was reasonably foreseeable that the employee bringing the claim could suffer an injury to health attributable to stress at work (per Hatton v Sutherland [2002] ICR 613);
2. Reasonable foreseeability depends on what the employer knew or ought reasonably to have known;
3. An employer may assume that an employee will withstand the usual pressures of a job ‘unless he knows of some particular problem or vulnerability’; and
4. The employer will only be in breach of duty when it fails to take the steps that are reasonable in the circumstances, bearing in mind the magnitude of the risk of harm occurring, the gravity of the harm which may occur, the cost and practicality of preventing it and the justifications for running the risk.

The judgment applies existing law and serves as a reminder that employers must balance the need to address workplace complaints with the duty to protect employees’ mental well-being during investigative and disciplinary procedures.

A Christian secondary school counsellor was dismissed for gross misconduct after posting critical comments on Facebook about relationship and sex education in primary schools, particularly regarding transgender issues and same-sex marriage. The Claimant argued that the dismissal was discriminatory based on her religious beliefs: that gender is binary, and marriage is between a man and a woman.

The Court of Appeal ruled in the Claimant’s favour.

1. Dismissing an employee solely for expressing a religious or other protected belief that the employer or others disagree with is unlawful direct discrimination under the Equality Act.
2. If the dismissal is due to the way in which a belief was expressed (not the belief itself), it may be lawful—but only if the employer can prove the response was proportionate and objectively justified.
3. Although point 2 alters the standard Equality Act approach to align with the European Convention on Human Rights, this combined legal interpretation is valid and lawful.
4. In this case, the Claimant posted messages criticising primary school sex education for promoting gender fluidity and equating same-sex and opposite-sex marriage. Her beliefs—that gender is binary and marriage is between a man and a woman—were accepted as protected under the Equality Act, based on the earlier decision of the EAT in Forstater v GCD Europe.
5. The school argued the dismissal was justified due to the tone of the posts and potential reputational harm. However, the Court found this insufficient, as the Claimant had not made such comments at work or treated pupils unfairly, so the dismissal could not be justified.

This judgment underscores the need for context-sensitive and balanced disciplinary approaches, protecting both freedom of belief and workplace integrity.

The Claimant (and the wider workforce) were not consulted about redundancy proposals before pooling and scoring took place. The criteria for selection, and the Claimant’s own scores, were not provided to him before his dismissal. This information was, however, provided on appeal.

The EAT held that the failure to consult at a formative stage meant that the dismissal was unfair. The EAT held that ‘whilst the appeal could correct any missing aspect of the individual consultation process (e.g. the provision of the Claimant’s…scores), it could not repair the gap of consultation in the formative stage’.

The EAT reviewed previous authorities and set out the following guiding principles for fair redundancy consultation:

• The employer will normally warn and consult either the employees affected or their representative;
• A fair consultation occurs when proposals are at a formative stage, and where the employee is given adequate information and adequate time to respond (along with conscientious consideration being given to that response);
• In consultation, the purpose is to avoid dismissal or reduce the impact of redundancies;
• A redundancy process must be viewed as a whole and an appeal may correct an earlier failing;
• It is a question of fact and degree as to whether consultation is adequate and it is not automatically unfair that there is a lack of consultation in a particular respect;
• Any particular aspect of consultation, such as the provision of scoring, is not essential to a fair process;
• The use of a scoring system does not make a process fair automatically; and
• Whether it is reasonable to show an employee the scores of others in a pool will be case-specific.