Varicose veins and dismissal claims win fishmonger more than £4,000

Thursday 27 August 2020

A fishmonger has been awarded more than £4,000 in compensation after a Tribunal concluded his ex-employer unfairly sacked him, and showed "a wilful blindness" to the difficulties caused by his medical condition.

The Tribunal heard that Jamie Price had been working at Faulkner Fisheries in the St Helier Fish Market for over ten years. He claimed to have experienced indirect disability discrimination, and that he had been both wrongfully and unfairly dismissed by his boss, Sean Faulkner.

Among Mr Price’s claims were that he had been discriminated against because of his varicose veins, leading to significant swelling in his feet. Mr Price claimed that Mr Faulkner had “expected too much of him.”

He said he had informed his employer of his condition many times, giving the Tribunal evidence of four Whatsapp exchanges from 2018 to 2019 where he described his condition to Mr Faulkner, as well as stating that he had brought up the possibility of a “10-minute break every hour” as recommended to him by the Family Nursing team.

Mr Price told the Tribunal that on 11 September 2019, he had told Mr Faulkner over a phone conversation that he had become “exasperated” with his demands, which had involved a list of tasks to do alongside managing the shop by himself. 

Pictured: The St Helier Fish Market where Faulkner Fisheries was located. 

He said that he had “threatened” to hand his notice, and that Mr Faulkner had replied asking if he was sure and telling him they would speak about it in the morning. 

Though Mr Faulkner agreed that the conversation ended as Mr Price stated, he disputed that the claimant had “threatened” to leave, instead telling the Tribunal that he had simply said, “I am handing in my notice” and that he had “confirmed that he was sure”, claiming he had said he “would work only the required minimum notice and not a day longer.”

The Tribunal was then told that this was followed the next day with another telephone conversation, where Mr Faulkner raised the resignation matter – the Tribunal's written judgment says that “the Claimant immediately denied he had resigned”, as “he had not put his resignation in writing.” 

The written judgement goes on to say that it “was clear from the evidence that the Claimant, having denied that he had resigned, believed the matter was closed and the Claimant continued work as normal.”

However, the Tribunal heard that on 23 September, Mr Faulkner tried to hand Mr Price a termination letter backdated to 12 September detailing the resignation and giving one month’s notice, with his last work day being 11 October. 

Mr Price refused the letter, stating that he “believed that because he was trying to sell the Shop, Mr Faulkner was manipulating the situation to avoid having to make a redundancy payment.” 

Witness Giles Le Feuvre said that at this point Mr Price became “visibly upset” – Mr Price acknowledged he had called Mr Faulkner “a pr***”, but “did not recall using other abusive terms.” 

Mr Faulkner told the Tribunal that because of this reaction “he felt he could no longer trust” Mr Price to be manager, and that he had asked him to phone him at 08:30 the next morning, so that he could think about things overnight – he did not return the shop keys to Mr Price.  

The judgment details that the next day, Mr Price did not call Mr Faulkner, and instead contacted the Jersey Advisory and Conciliation service, before sending Mr Faulkner a number of emails over the following days seeking “clarification of what was happening regarding access to his place of work and whether he would be paid.”

Though the court document states that “Mr Faulkner briefly acknowledged some of these emails”, it adds that “he refused to engage in any discussion with the Claimant.”

It goes on to state that on 27 September 2019, Mr Faulkner “informed the Claimant that he would receive his ‘Final Payment’ that day”, before his notice period ended on 11 October. He then retracted it “and refused to pay the Claimant without the Claimant entering into a settlement agreement, which the Claimant refused to agree to.”

Though Mr Faulkner had argued he did not consider Mr Price disabled, the Tribunal concluded that Mr Price was classified as disabled within the meaning of Discrimination Jersey Law, and that he had been indirectly discriminated against. 

The Tribunal said that whilst “there was not a deliberate campaign of discrimination” on Mr Faulkner’s part, there was a “wilful blindness” in “regarding the obvious difficulties which the Claimant was experiencing.” 

The Tribunal also accepted Mr Price’s claims of unfair dismissal, saying that Mr Faulkner’s “failure to follow any formal dismissal procedure” meant that his “decision to dismiss the Claimant fell outside the range of reasonable responses of a reasonable employer in these circumstances.”

Additionally, they concluded that Mr Price was also “wrongfully dismissed” and was “entitled to receive damages for breach of contract for failure to give notice to terminate his employment.”

Altogether, Mr Price was awarded £5,359.76: more than £4,500 in relation to his dismissal and indirect discrimination claims, and nearly £800 relating to accrued holiday pay and unpaid wages.