The Laurels Family Assessment Limited v M Y Kay

An appeal alleging perversity succeeds only where an overwhelming case shows that no reasonable employment tribunal, properly applying the evidence and law, could have reached the decision in question. The Employment Appeal Tribunal must not reweigh conflicting evidence or substitute its own factual assessment.

A tribunal may reject an employer’s stated reasons for dismissal where its findings and permissible inferences support the conclusion that protected disclosures were the sole or principal reason. It must engage with those stated reasons, but may find that they played no active part in the decision. Adequate reasons are given where the tribunal explains why it preferred the evidence and inferences on which its conclusion rests.

The company appealed against a majority decision of the Employment Tribunal. The tribunal upheld the claimant’s complaints of automatic unfair dismissal under section 103A and detrimental treatment under section 47B of the Employment Rights Act 1996.

The claimant was dismissed on the day that she spoke to an independent visitor about a colleague’s alleged recreational drug use and attendance at work while affected by drugs. The tribunal found that she had previously raised the same matter with the manager, that both communications were protected disclosures, and that the disclosures were the reason for dismissal and for refusal to entertain her appeal.

The company contended that the majority’s findings were perverse, inadequately reasoned, and failed to consider an alleged medication-recording issue when determining the principal reason for dismissal.

1. Appeal dismissed. The company did not establish perversity. A perversity challenge faces a very high threshold: it requires an overwhelming case that no reasonable tribunal, properly appreciating the evidence and law, could have reached the decision. The Appeal Tribunal does not reassess the weight of conflicting evidence merely because a party prefers the minority’s view.

2. There was evidence capable of supporting every challenged majority finding. The claimant’s oral evidence supported the findings about her knowledge of the colleague’s drug use, the conversation with the manager, the later conversation with the independent visitor, and the circumstances of dismissal. The majority were entitled to assess that evidence alongside the absence of evidence from the independent visitor and the non-disclosure of his contemporaneous report.

3. The majority’s reasons were sufficient. They did not simply prefer the claimant’s evidence without explanation. They analysed the evidential material, identified why they rejected the manager’s and company’s accounts, and permissibly concluded that the independent visitor’s later email did not accurately reflect the relevant conversation.

4. The tribunal had engaged with each asserted dismissal reason. It was entitled to find that the medication-recording matter had already been treated as a training issue, and that the other matters in the dismissal letter were unsupported or did not play an active part. Its findings as to timing, the summary nature of dismissal, the employer’s knowledge, and the absence of reliable alternative explanations provided a proper basis for concluding that the protected disclosures were uppermost in the manager’s mind and were the sole or principal reason for dismissal under section 103A of the Employment Rights Act 1996.

5. The same findings provided a sufficient basis for the tribunal’s conclusion that the refusal to consider the claimant’s appeal was detrimental treatment because of the protected disclosures. Both grounds of appeal failed.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: the company’s appeal was dismissed: [2026] EAT 39.
• Employment Tribunal: by a majority, upheld the claimant’s complaints of automatic unfair dismissal under section 103A and detrimental treatment under section 47B of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The tribunal unanimously upheld a separate complaint concerning the written statement of particulars; that decision was not challenged.