Governing Body of St Andrews Catholic Primary School and ors v Blundell
The Employment Appeal Tribunal’s (EAT) decision in Governing Body of St Andrews Catholic Primary School and ors v Blundell provides some interesting comments on remedies in sex discrimination cases. These include a review of mid to upper range injury to feelings awards and comments regarding aggravated damages and a recommendation made by the tribunal.
Basic facts
Mrs Blundell had worked as a teacher at the school from 1992 without any problems until June 2003 when she announced her intention to go on maternity leave that December. Following difficulties between her and Mrs Assid, the head teacher, she lodged a claim of sex discrimination in May 2005 which ended up in the EAT (see weekly LELR 18).
Following a “feedback” meeting (after a classroom observation) in November 2006 in which Mrs Assid told Mrs Blundell that her future was under review because of the standard of her work, she went off sick with a stress-related illness. While on sick leave, Mrs Blundell told some parents that she was being bullied by the management of the school. This prompted a disciplinary hearing which resulted in her dismissal.
Mrs Blundell brought a number of complaints.
Tribunal decision
The tribunal agreed with her that she had been victimised on the ground of sex discrimination. It said that the headmistress had treated her less favourably “by reason of a protected act” in the way she had handled complaints made against Mrs Blundell by certain teacher governors and the criticisms she had made of Mrs Blundell in the feedback meeting.
Relying on guidance in Vento v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire police, the tribunal decided that as this was a serious case involving “conduct akin to a campaign of discriminatory harassment”, it would award Mrs Blundell towards the top end of compensation for injury to feelings - £22,000.
It also awarded her £5,000 for aggravated damages, loss of earnings until February 2015 and made a recommendation that the school should send a letter to all parents and teachers apologising for the anguish caused to Mrs Blundell and confirming that she was, throughout her time at the school, a capable and hard working teacher.
The school challenged the level of compensation and the recommendation.
EAT decision
The EAT allowed part of the appeal. It said that although the victimisation was serious and clearly had “deeply unpleasant consequences” for Mrs Blundell, the tribunal should have referred to other authorities to provide them with a benchmark against which to measure the appropriate level of compensation. In the EAT’s view, this case fell squarely within the middle, rather than the top, band (which it said was reserved by Vento for the most serious cases) and reduced the award to £14,000.
As for the award of aggravated damages, the EAT upheld the tribunal’s decision. It criticised the way the school had conducted itself at the remedies hearing, namely by calling evidence to show that it did not have confidence in Mrs Blundell’s teaching. This contradicted the dismissal letter from the school which said that it had no criticism of her teaching as well as the outcome of a 2006 Ofsted inspection which rated her teaching as good.
It also upheld the award for future loss of earnings but said that the tribunal had failed to calculate it in the correct way and remitted the issue to the tribunal to “carry out that exercise in the proper manner”.
Finally, it agreed with the school that the terms of the recommendation should be amended so that the headteacher did not have to make statements in a letter with which she did not agree, “however wrongheaded it may be of her”.