A human resources director with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has won her discrimination claim against the Royal Mint after an employment tribunal agreed there was a link between her disability and resignation.
The Cardiff tribunal concluded she was then prevented from rescinding her resignation from the Royal Mint even though she argued she ‘made the decision impulsively [and] purely out of emotion, anxiety and humiliation’.
When the former employee Sarah Bradley brought her case, the tribunal heard that she had attempted to resign from her position multiple times in the past, the first time in late 2019 following a double bereavement that year.
However, on each occasion the Royal Mint’s CEO Anne Jessopp refused to accept the resignations because she judged the employee was not well.
Having been previously diagnosed with anxiety and depression in 2013, Bradley was then diagnosed with ADHD in January 2022. The tribunal heard that the Royal Mint accepted the claimant was ‘disabled in respect of the impairments of depression and anxiety’ and had knowledge of the ADHD diagnosis.
However, when Bradley resigned in June 2022, Jessopp decided that, because the HR director was not ‘visibly upset, sobbing or displaying emotions or behaviour’ that gave rise to any concern about her mental health, she accepted the decision.
After assessing the case, Employment Judge Moore noted in the reserved judgment dated 16 July that, although the Royal Mint did have ‘reasonable and legitimate reasons’ for refusing Bradley to rescind, the UK’s official maker of British coins’ ‘disbelief of the claimant caused them to close their minds to any suggestion that the claimant’s resignation was attributable to her disabilities’.
The employment tribunal accepted there was a link between Bradley’s disability and her resignation and, for this reason, found the ‘claimant’s complaint for discrimination arising from disability regarding the refusal to permit rescindment of her resignation was well founded’.
‘The tribunal was unable to understand why the respondent did not pause and take some proper informed medical advice concerning the disabilities, the impact on the claimant’s behaviour and prognosis to then be in a position to truly assess whether the refusal to allow the rescindment would achieve their stated aims,’ said Judge Moore.
‘They may well have still been in a position to decide that the rescindment had to stand, although such matters will have to be reserved for remedy.’
The tribunal also concluded that the Royal Mint did not ‘appropriately’ manage Bradley’s behaviour, particularly after her ADHD diagnosis.
BACKGROUND TO CLAIM
Bradley had a long working relationship with the Royal Mint, the tribunal heard, having commenced employment in January 2009. After being promoted to director of HR in 2015, she continued to report to Jessopp.
In February 2019 Bradley’s mother died followed by her mother-in-law that September. In an executive team meeting that followed, the claimant ‘broke down and fell out with colleagues at work’ and offered to resign. However, Jessopp recognised she was not well and so refused to accept her resignation, the tribunal heard.
Bradley subsequently developed ‘fixations or obsessions’ with staff members that she perceived were underperforming. This resulted in Royal Mint’s management team having to step in to help manage the situation. The tribunal heard that the HR director refused to work with a particular employee so Jessopp had to become an intermediary.
Then in February 2021, Bradley met with the CEO. She was ‘sobbing uncontrollably’ and said the employee in question was making her ill. She also threatened to leave if the individual’s interim role was made permanent. The Royal Mint agreed for her to take some time of work, but Jessopp refused to accept Bradley’s resignation because she recognised the employee was not well.
After the claimant was diagnosed with ADHD, she was very open about her diagnosis with work colleagues, the tribunal heard. The CEO offered to provide professional help to support Bradley in her role, but the HR director said she was already receiving private psychiatric treatment and so declined the help. The tribunal heard that she was never referred to occupational health at any relevant time.
On 11 May 2022, the claimant was late for an executive meeting, which started in her absence. The tribunal heard how Bradley became very upset with Jessopp’s attitude towards her. After it ended, the claimant asked the head of HR to collect her belongings and meet her in reception because she wanted to go home.
Back home, Bradley contacted Jessopp and said she’d had a telephone consultation with the nurse regarding her hormone replacement therapy (HRT) medication. The CEO responded supportively and offered her time off.
Later that same day, Bradley told Jessopp she was on the wrong dose and a combination of medication. She explained how she would start a new combination that Friday. The CEO sent two further supportive messages and offered further time off.
Two days after the incident, the claimant contacted Jessopp and said in her message: ‘“Mania” over… just feeling exhausted now… I am so, so sorry about this […] You are probably at the end of your tether by now. If you want to have a “conversation” with me about a leaving plan, I will totally understand.’
In the account the Royal Mint’s CEO gave the tribunal, she said her response was ‘not to be so silly’. She also stressed how proud of Bradley she was in dealing with her ADHD diagnosis.
Then, during a meeting with Jessopp held on 15 June, Bradley said she ‘floated the idea’ of resigning.
According to the tribunal transcript, the CEO noted that, unlike the previous occasions when Bradley had discussed resigning, she was neither visibly upset nor displaying emotions or behaviour that would concern management about her mental health.
Jessopp’s account was that Bradley was considering a career in the interim market in London. Her husband was retiring and since that made her the sole earner, money had become important. In her account, she also recounted how the claimant had confided she had been with Royal Mint so long that work felt ‘repetitive and stale’.
The CEO said she was shocked by Bradley’s decision, but added she appeared to have thought it through. For this reason, she accepted Bradley’s resignation.
BULLYING ALLEGATION AGAINST CLAIMANT
The tribunal heard that on 21 June 2022, the employee that Bradley had refused to work with brought a complaint to the Royal Mint’s chief commercial officer for the consumer business division, claiming she had bullied him.
The next day the individual told the chief commercial officer that he intended to escalate matters and report it to the Royal Mint’s CEO. Bradley, however, had overhead the conversation and when the chief commercial officer informed her that a bullying complaint might be brought, she responded with: ‘I will solve that – I am leaving’.
He urged her not to overreact, but she informed him that she had already handed in her resignation the previous week. Bradley added that she intended to get interim work and earn more money.
The chief commercial officer noted she had ‘tears in her eyes’, but otherwise appeared calm and collected. In her account to the tribunal, however, Bradley said she was ‘ranting, really emotional and wasn’t listening’. She also said she ‘made the decision impulsively purely out of emotion, anxiety and humiliation’.
On 23 June, the leadership team was informed in a statement that Bradley had ‘decided the time [was] right for her to hand in her notice and pursue a career in the professional interim market’.
Four days later, the claimant confirmed this in writing via an email to the Royal Mint’s CEO, who formally accepted it in her reply. Her last working day was set for 30 September 2022.
However, when Bradley informed her husband on 4 July that she had resigned after he had returned from holiday, he was ‘very upset, worried and anxious about their future’. This prompted her to try and retract her resignation.
RESCINDING RESIGNATION
The tribunal heard that Bradley arranged to meet Jessopp to discuss the matter further. On meeting, she immediately asked whether she could rescind her resignation.
According to the CEO’s account, the claimant said ‘she had not been herself the past few weeks’. However, Jessopp disputed the claimant’s account that ‘she had been in crisis’.
The CEO told Bradley that she couldn’t rescind the resignation because it had been communicated widely. In addition, the claimant had been very open about wanting more money. This admission, the CEO added, compromised her role of leading on pay awards because others knew Bradley wanted to earn significantly more.
Jessopp also felt that there was a ‘real risk’ that Bradley could resign again because the CEO understood that the claimant’s main motivation was financial. She was aware she would not be able to secure any further pay awards for the claimant.
Later that month, on 27 July, the two met again. At the meeting, Jessopp confirmed that she would not permit Bradley to rescind her resignation. The claimant became upset, left the office and became very unwell.
The next day, the tribunal heard the claimant emailed some of the leadership team, stating: ‘Despite me informing the business at the beginning of this year of my ADHD disability, the lack of support and reasonable adjustments at work over the last six months has caused me considerable stress, anxiety and deep depression, to the point of not wanting to be “here” anymore.
‘My illness was further compounded yesterday by the business refusing to let me rescind my impulsive decision to resign, which, due to the nature of my disability, was a decision made while being extremely ill and seeking psychiatric support to find the right combination of medication to treat my illness – an illness I have managed and “masked” over the last 13 years of loyal and dedicated service at the Royal Mint, but has become difficult, (but not impossible), to manage [because of] my late in life hormonal changes.’
After this, the CEO sent an email to Bradley informing her that she would not permit her to rescind her resignation.
Bradley was placed on garden leave and the Royal Mint offered her counselling and outplacement support. She was also reminded about the employee assistance programme.
The employment tribunal heard that Bradley was subsequently signed off sick by her GP. However, she continued to challenge the decision not to permit her to rescind her resignation via emails to Jessopp and later solicitors’ letters.
The claimant’s solicitor sent a letter to the Royal Mint on 22 August, which complained of sex and disability discrimination. The letter noted that the Royal Mint had failed to refer Bradley for an occupational or specialist assessment and should permit her to rescind her notice.
In its response, dated 26 August, the Royal Mint refused to accept that Bradley’s decision to resign could be attributed to her mental health or ADHD.
The respondent’s solicitor stated: ‘Our client does not accept that your client’s resignation arose in consequence of her impaired mental health and instead arose from her desire to work elsewhere and earn more money. An occupational health referral was considered unnecessary given the level of medical support your client was stating she was already receiving.’
The tribunal heard that Bradley’s formal grievance, submitted on 13 September, was not upheld. When she appealed this decision, it was also not successful.
Bradley’s claim for direct and indirect sex discrimination was dismissed by the tribunal on withdrawal by the claimant.
The tribunal also found that her claim for direct disability discrimination was not well founded and dismissed it. In addition, it dismissed Bradley’s claim for the Royal Mint’s failure to make reasonable adjustments.