A paralegal who alleged discrimination due to her pregnancy and claimed she was unfairly dismissed has failed with employment tribunal claims against a law firm after a judge found she had resigned.

The claimant, Miss M Gil, worked at full-service firm Herrington Carmichael LLP as a debt recovery paralegal from May 2021 to August 2023 in the firm’s dispute resolution team.

Employment judge Hawksworth, sitting with two panel members at Reading employment tribunal, dismissed the complaints of pregnancy and maternity discrimination, indirect sex discrimination, and harassment related to sex. The panel also found Gil was not dismissed and the complaints of unfair dismissal were not well-founded.

Gil requested two working from home days in July 2021. She gave as her reason for the request ‘so someone is home with the puppies’, the judgment said. In reply to her email, her manager Adrian Taylor agreed. Gil later submitted a formal agile working request at Taylor’s suggestion but no written response to the request was sent to Gil.

The judge, who apologised for the delay in producing written reasons noting ‘this reflects the current workload in the tribunal’, said that despite the lack of written response, it was reasonable for Gil to understand that her agile working request had been granted. 'However, we do not find that the arrangement was or became a contractual one. The respondent’s agile working policy made clear that it was non-contractual.’

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Gil went on maternity leave around a year later. When she returned, she made a request to work from home three days a week which was refused. An alternative was put forward for Gil to work from home one day a week on a trial basis. Gil issued a written grievance on 10 May 2023 and gave notice of resignation later that month, giving three months’ notice. In June, the day after she resigned, she was offered a role as performance development manager at British Airways.

Finding that the refusal of Gil’s request to work three days a week from home was unfavourable treatment, the employment tribunal said it was ‘not because of the claimant’s pregnancy or because of her being on maternity leave’ but because of the ‘different approaches’ of managers, one of whom was ‘more accepting of working from home’ and the other who ‘preferred staff to work in the office’.

Dismissing the pregnancy and maternity discrimination complaints, the judgment said Gil’s pregnancy or maternity leave did not play a part in the ‘thought processes’ around the decision on her flexible working request.

Referring to the unfair dismissal claim, the judge said Gill had resigned and was not dismissed and her complaints of unfair dismissal failed. It noted ‘there were aspect which [the firm] could have dealt with better’ including not giving Gil any written response to her initial agile working request and not telling her about ‘some concerns’ relating to Gil working from home.

The judge added: ‘Against that background it was understandable that the claimant was unhappy about the required changes to her working pattern which were to coincide with her return to work from maternity leave.

‘However, the respondent’s agile working policy made clear that it was noncontractual and that arrangements could be withdrawn or varied.'