Injury to feelings can be awarded in a claim of detriment for asserting working time rights, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has found.
In the case of South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue v Mansell the claimants were firefighters who had a new shift system at their station imposed on them. The system was introduced without variation of the collective agreement with their union, and which provided inadequate rest breaks. When they all refused to work the new system, they were transferred to another station.
The tribunal found that the transfer amounted to a detriment (a detriment occurs when an employer takes an unfair action against an employee but stops short of dismissal) for asserting their working time rights. This was contrary to sections 45A and 48 of the Employment Rights Act (ERA). The tribunal awarded injury to feelings for the claims, but the fire service appealed.
The fire service argued that no injury to feelings should be awarded while the claimants relied on other detriment cases to argue that it should.
Writing in Daniel Barnett’s Employment Law Bulletin, James Medhurst, Associate at fieldfisher, said: ‘The EAT held that because the remedy is set by s 49 of the ERA, the same section as for other detriment cases, injury to feelings is potentially available. Whether it is appropriate to make an award in a particular case is a question of fact.’
