A deaf mother who was forced to quit her job at the British Deaf Association when bosses refused to reduce her hours after having a baby has won a payout of more than £36,000.
Lisanne Hedger quit in 2019 after her manager at the charity rejected her request to only work two or three days a week so she could care for her recently born daughter.
She then sued the charity for sex discrimination and constructive unfair dismissal in an employment tribunal.
Ruling on the case, Judge Patrick Quill said Mrs Hedger, who communicates with sign language, had been subjected to ‘indirect sex discrimination’ because women are more likely to want reduced hours for childcare reasons.
Awarding her over £36,000 compensation, he said Mrs Hedger, who was a project manager, had been caused ‘anxiety, sleeplessness and feelings of loss of self-worth’ due to the discrimination.
Lisanne Hedger quit in 2019 after her manager at the charity rejected her request to only work two or three days a week so she could care for her recently born daughter
She then sued the charity for sex discrimination and constructive unfair dismissal in an employment tribunal
Ruling on the case, Judge Patrick Quill said Mrs Hedger, who communicates with sign language, had been subjected to ‘indirect sex discrimination’ because women are more likely to want reduced hours for childcare reasons
The tribunal heard that Mrs Hedger, who lives in Kent, had worked for the north London-based charity since 2014, initially as a part-time project assistant.
She was working four days a week as a project manager when, in 2017, she informed her managers that she was pregnant and would be going on maternity leave.
She was due to return to work in February 2019, but before going back she put in a request, asking that her hours be reduced to 16 hours over two days.
The request was refused and a second request to work 24 hours over three days was also refused, with her bosses saying that her role required a minimum of 28 hours a week.
The judge said the charity’s decision to demand at least 28 hours a week created a ‘disadvantage’ for women, who are more likely to have childcare issues than men.
‘We are satisfied that the claimant was put at the particular disadvantage, and that arranging childcare which was affordable and practicable meant that she faced great difficulties in working four days per week,’ he said.
‘It is not necessarily the case that it would have been completely impossible for the claimant to work the four days, but, as we say it would have been very difficult for her.’
He said the charity did not ‘adequately consider’ the possibility of trying to hire someone else to do the hours which Mrs Hedger wanted to drop and had wrongly based its decision on an assumption that she would be travelling three-and-a-half hours each way to get to work.
‘Taking into account the respondent’s purported justification, the respondent has not satisfied us that the outright refusal to consider anything other than 28 hours was proportionate,’ he said.
‘The respondent was not even willing to consider a trial period for the 24 hours and the respondent based its refusal of the 24 hours on false information, namely that it believed the claimant would be travelling for seven hours a day.
‘Therefore, the indirect discrimination claim succeeds.’
He continued: ‘It is our decision that the respondent’s actions in refusing the flexible working request were conduct, without reasonable and proper cause, which was likely to destroy or seriously damage the relationship of confidence and trust between employer and employee the claimant and the respondent.
‘In the circumstances, we find that the dismissal was an unfair one. The claimant was not dismissed because of performance or conduct and she was not redundant given that the role itself was continuing way past 31 March 2019.’
Awarding her over £36,000 compensation, he said Mrs Hedger, who was a project manager, had been caused ‘anxiety, sleeplessness and feelings of loss of self-worth’ due to the discrimination
A claim by Mrs Hedger for direct sex discrimination was rejected by the tribunal
Awarding her damages for lost earnings and pension contributions, as well as injury to feelings, he added: ‘We take into account that all discriminatory conduct is serious and that claimants should be appropriately compensated for the wrong done to them.
‘It is important to take into account the effects on the individual claimant. We have taken into account the fact that the claimant has been caused anxiety, sleeplessness and feelings of loss of self-worth as a result of the respondent’s refusal to grant her request and the dismissal, as we found it to be.
‘The discriminatory conduct was not a one-off act and not of a short-term duration.’
Her award includes £11,000 for injury to feelings, £16,903.32 for lost earnings, £775.38 for lost pension contributions and £2,032 for breach of flexible working rules under the Employment Rights Act 1996, plus interest.
Her total payout is £36,730.61.
The judge made the award after a hearing in Watford in April, but the full judgment in the case has only now been handed down.
A claim for direct sex discrimination was rejected by the tribunal.
