A Tribunal has found that there was no age discrimination in a case involving a 42 year old beauty therapist.
Facts
Miss Wood started employment as a Counter Assistant in June 2016 for Liz Earle at a Boots store. She was 42 years old and had 24 years of experience working in the beauty industry.
Her line manager, Miss Scott, was 21. Miss Wood alleged that she received no support from Miss Scott during her first day at work. Miss Wood said that she found Miss Scott’s behaviour threatening and harassing, and the example she gave was that she contacted her at home by text, and made comments such as: “you’re a bit old to have a baby really aren’t you; you do know Liz Earle wants someone who’s really flexible”. Miss Scott also reportedly accused Miss Wood of stealing muslin cloths.
Miss Wood submitted a grievance in July 2016. A meeting was held the following week and attended by Miss Wood, Miss Scott and the store manager. Miss Wood didn’t receive any written response to the meeting. Miss Wood was then off work with stress-related illnesses, and was informed in August 2016 that she would receive a written apology from Miss Scott. When Miss Wood returned to work, she did not receive an apology, but Miss Scott was no longer her line manager, and had in fact resigned. Despite chasing an apology, she never received one.
Miss Wood submitted a claim of age discrimination based on Liz Earle’s failure to investigate the issue in a timely manner and the apparent retraction of the apology.
Decision
The Tribunal considered that spending the first day of work on her own did not give rise to any inference that Miss Wood was subject to discriminatory behaviour on the basis of age, nor were other events such as the delay in getting a note of the grievance meeting to the Claimant, or Miss Scott showing colleagues confidential texts sent by the claimant. They also rejected the claim that Miss Scott made a remark to her that she was “a bit old to have a baby” in response to Miss Wood mentioning her 12 month old child at the time of starting her role. There was no evidence to substantiate this allegation.
The Tribunal referred to extensive oral and written evidence, including texts messages sent between Miss Scott and Miss Wood. They considered that the messages sent by Miss Scott were not aggressive, and she was just raising work matters in “an appropriate and polite manner”.
On the matter of the apology, the Judge found that Liz Earle had wanted to give Miss Wood the apology, but the fact that Miss Scott had resigned and moved away made that beyond their control – they had done all that was reasonably possible to obtain an apology from her.
Therefore, the age discrimination claim failed.
The judgment is available here.
Miss N Wood v Liz Earle Beauty Co. Limited 1400079/2017