Employee unfairly dismissed after refusing to return to office

An employee was unfairly dismissed after he refused to return to the office during the pandemic because he lived with his girlfriend who was clinically vulnerable.

Jennifer Cafferky Solicitor in our employment team, reports on this recent case.

The case involved Nicholas Quelch, who worked as a compliance analyst at Courtiers Support Services.

On March 18, 2020, Quelch began working from home after the Prime Minister said the public must stay home.

He lived in a one-bedroom apartment with his girlfriend who suffered from asthma and a heart condition, which meant she was classed as ‘clinically vulnerable’ to the virus.

Quelch’s line manager, Stuart Richards, was happy that he was working ‘effectively’.

However, when the first lockdown restrictions were relaxed, Courtiers began a phased return to the office between May and July.

Quelch was one of the last to be required to return. Before his return date in July, he emailed the head of HR, Sue Ruston, to express his reluctance to return as he was shielding his girlfriend.

He said he was ‘very anxious’ and requested to continue working from home.

Ruston said that he must return to the office and suggested he take annual leave or look to live somewhere away from his girlfriend.

She said if he didn’t return, he would be placed on unpaid leave and face disciplinary action.

Quelch refused to return and lost access to the Courtiers’ systems and was placed on unpaid leave.

He also refused to attend a disciplinary meeting as Richards, who was to be his companion in the meeting, was not able to attend.

Ruston wrote to him to say he had been dismissed for gross misconduct.

She wrote: “The business has lost all faith and trust in you. This is through your actions of being obstructive and unwilling to return to the office, despite the repeated requests.”

He took legal action and the Employment Tribunal ruled in his favour.

It held that Courtiers had not shown there was a potentially fair reason for dismissal and even if it could be established that they had lost trust in Quelch, both the dismissal and process they took was not “within the range of reasonable responses”.

Quelch was awarded £14,746.25 compensation for unfair dismissal.

If you would like more information about the issues raised in this article, or any aspect of employment law please contact Jennifer on 01228 516666 or click here to send her an email.