Law firm Swift Lawyers has been ordered to pay damages of £18,800 after an employment tribunal found that it had unfairly dismissed a pregnant paralegal.
Farzana Yasin joined the firm in 2017 to work on cavity wall insulation claims. She had two consecutive maternity leave periods from October 2018, returned to work in November 2020 and was put on furlough in January 2021. She revealed that she was pregnant again soon after, which was followed by the firm deciding to stop its cavity wall work and make Yasin redundant.
The tribunal found that redundancy was the genuine reason for the dismissal, and that Yasin was not selected for redundancy because of her pregnancy. However, it held that Swift Lawyers did not properly consult her about this, as Yasin was informally told she was going to be made redundant in March 2021 and the process that followed was deemed to be a ‘box-ticking exercise’ for a decision which was already final.
The tribunal also found that the firm fell short in its attempts to find Yasin suitable alternative employment, but did find a personal injury employee other opportunities within the business, and hired a conveyancing assistant in June 2021 after telling Yasin that one was not needed.
Employment Judge Dunlop said during the tribunal: “We consider that Yasin has proven facts from which it is possible to conclude, in the absence of an alternative explanation from the respondent, that both the respondent’s failure to engage in genuine and meaningful consultation, and its failure to consider Yasin for the role of conveyancing assistant were on the grounds of her pregnancy (and/or on the grounds that she was seeking to take maternity leave).
“We consider that those circumstances give rise to an inference that Yasin would have been treated differently if she had not been pregnant…Although pregnancy was not the immediate cause of Yasin’s dismissal…her pregnancy played a part in the respondent’s decision to dismiss, albeit that it was not the sole or principal reason for the dismissal.”
Swift Lawyers was ordered to pay Yasin £15,000 plus interest for injury to feelings, plus another £1,000 for loss of earnings. There was no basic award for the unfair dismissal claim as she received a redundancy payment.
Swift Lawyers was contacted for comment prior to publication.