Tube driver tribunal upholds unfair dismissal claim
A Tube driver who opened the doors on the wrong side of the station was unfairly dismissed but will not receive compensation.
Sam Gritton was dismissed by Transport for London after she accidentally opened both sets of doors on a busy Central line train at Holborn station in January 2022. The doors were open for three seconds and she failed to report the incident immediately in accordance with TfL procedures.
When the incident was investigated, Gritton submitted a handwritten account of events, where she said she had tried to close the doors but “nothing was happening on my CCTV” and she then asked passengers not to obstruct the doors.
Her letter also set out some personal issues she was dealing with, including the death of both her parents in a matter of weeks. She said that at the time of the incident she was preoccupied with these issues.
Gritton was stood down from her usual duties while a further investigation took place. She visited her GP who told her that the work incident was “very likely due to extreme stress and anxiety”.
Later that month, she was invited to a disciplinary interview and in April was sent a letter informing her that she would be summarily dismissed. The disciplinary panel concluded that she had “suffered a loss of clear memory of the incident…this is highly concerning”. In other words they considered that she lied.
She launched an unfair dismissal claim on the grounds that five other Tube drivers had also accidentally opened the doors, but had been allowed to keep their jobs.
She also filed claims for disability discrimination, claiming that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression and sex discrimination.
The tribunal upheld her claim of unfair dismissal due to flaws in the investigation process. It found that there had been some inadequacies in investigating whether Gritton’s actions were related to a disability or ill health, or a mechanical issue with the door opening.
It also found that the comparators she presented for her claim of sex discrimination had “not been taken into account or genuinely considered”.
In judgment, Judge Beyzade said: “In conclusion, there was a potentially fair reason for dismissal (that is, conduct) and the respondent had a genuine and reasonable belief that the claimant had committed misconduct.
However, although the respondent took steps to investigate what happened in relation to the incident that took place, the tribunal considers that there were failures of the respondent to take the procedure beyond the fact-finding stage.” It dismissed the claims for discrimination on the grounds of sex or disability.
However the failures in the investigation were “sufficiently serious to render the claimant’s dismissal unfair considering all the circumstances.
The Tribunal took account of the severity of the incident and the claimant's negligence and reduced the compensation award to zero.
A moral victory for the claimant perhaps but without any financial compensation.
Source: Personnel Today
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