EAT reduces ‘manifestly excessive’ award for injury to feelings
In Eddie Stobart Ltd v Graham, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) reduced the compensation awarded by the Employment Tribunal to a successful claimant, concluding that an award of £10,000 for injury to feelings was “manifestly excessive and therefore perverse” given the limited impact of the employer’s actions.
Facts of the Eddie Stobart Ltd v Graham case
The claimant, Miss Graham, was employed by the respondent as a planner for a period of approximately 10 months.
In October 2021, the claimant informed her employer that she was pregnant.
Following a reorganisation that was announced in March 2022, the claimant’s employment was terminated by reason of redundancy. Although four new roles for “transport shift manager” (TSM) were created in the same location, the claimant was unsuccessful in obtaining a role following interviews and was therefore subsequently made redundant in May 2022.
The claimant submitted a grievance in April 2022 regarding her redundancy (and re-submitted the same grievance again in May 2022). The grievance emails, even though they entered the respondent’s IT system, were not seen by the respondent as a firewall system blocked them for security reasons. As a result, neither grievance was addressed by the respondent.
The claimant submitted several claims in the Employment Tribunal (ET), including for unfair dismissal, victimisation, pregnancy or maternity discrimination, and detriment related to maternity leave.
The ET rejected the claim for unfair dismissal, agreeing with the respondent that the new TSM vacancy was not “suitable” for the claimant. However, the ET found that there had been pregnancy/maternity discrimination as, even though the respondent had not received the claimant’s grievance emails, the claimant did verbally raise the fact that she had lodged a grievance and made clear she was unhappy about the way she had been treated, and the respondent failed to adequately follow this up. The claimant was awarded £10,000 for injury to feelings.
The respondent appealed the decision, arguing that the award for £10,000 was excessive and disproportionate to the degree of upset suffered by the claimant.
Appeal Decision
The EAT held that the award for £10,000 was excessive, and held that the ET had not provided an explanation as to how it had assessed the seriousness of the claimant’s injury to award a figure in the middle Vento Band.
Whilst the EAT found there to be a “degree of upset”, there was limited evidence of the claimant’s injury. The EAT found that there was no evidence that the injury went beyond the immediate experience of detriment, and that there was no evidence to suggest that there had been any adverse effect on her work or impact on her personal or quality of life. Therefore, this could only have been a lower band Vento case.
Accordingly, the EAT substituted the award to the claimant for £2,000 (plus interest totalling £169)
Comments
This case highlights the importance of evidence to support any claim for injury to feelings, and makes clear that the tribunal should be compensating only for the injury suffered, and not the manner of the discrimination.
This case also highlights the importance of employers ensuring they take adequate steps to deal with any grievances of which they are made aware, , even if that grievance has not been physically received.
Contact us
Robyn Ackerman is a solicitor in our employment team. If you have any questions or concerns relating to the issues in this article, or need legal advice, get in touch with us today.