In the case of Jhoots Pharmacy and another v Woods [2012] EWCA Civ 1578 Mrs Woods, a Muslim, worked as a pharmacist at Jhoots Pharmacy. Her boss, Mr Parmar, and the HR director, Mrs Jhooty, were both Sikh.
During a meeting to discuss Mrs Woods' timekeeping, Mrs Woods allegedly commented that Mr Parmar and the company were "a little Sikh club that only looked after Sikhs". Mrs Woods denied making this remark but was later suspended and then dismissed. The business cited poor timekeeping and breaches of the company's absence reporting procedure as the reasons for her dismissal.
Mrs Woods brought a victimisation complaint in the Tribunal. The HR director accepted that her decision to dismiss Mrs Woods had been heavily influenced by the remark, which she thought was racist. The original Tribunal held that as the comment made by Mrs Woods was an allegation of direct discrimination made in good faith, it was a protected act. As Mrs Woods was dismissed by reason of that protected act, she had been victimised for raising the allegation.
Both the Employment Appeal Tribunal ("EAT") and Court of Appeal disagreed with the Tribunal and focused on the "reason why" Mrs Woods had been dismissed. The Court of Appeal held that, technically, Mrs Woods was dismissed because she made a remark which was a complaint of discrimination. However, the reason for dismissal was not that Mrs Woods had made the complaint (and thereby done a protected act), but the fact that the complaint itself had been made in a racist manner.
Comment: There can often be a fine line between dismissing an employee for the inappropriate manner in which they have raised an allegation (whether that is an allegation of discrimination or whistleblowing) and dismissing an employee because of the allegation itself. Tribunals will examine very closely the real reason why the dismissal occurred and therefore it is important in this type of situation to clearly explain and distinguish that the individual is not being dismissed or disciplined for raising a complaint but rather because of the way in which the complaint occurred (in this case by the employee making a racist remark herself).
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