Employed eight days
A law firm receptionist has had her employment claims dismissed after refusing to accept her “own obvious shortcomings,” which included being unable to pronounce the name of the firm.
The law firm receptionist brought a range of disability discrimination and harassment claims against her former firm where she was employed for just over a week.
The claimant, identified only as Miss J. Earle in the public ruling, was contracted to fill a temporary position for up to three months at the law firm Wykeham-Hurford Sheppard & Son.
Having started at the firm on the morning of 15 June 2022, her employment was terminated eight days later on 23 June 2022, on the basis that she “could not perform the role to the required standard”. Earle disagreed, arguing that her contract was terminated because of her disability, which included back, shoulder, and neck pain.
The employment tribunal found Earle to be “less credible” than other witnesses, “at times exaggerating and embellishing her evidence, and adopting positions on certain points which were evidently unreasonable or counterintuitive”.
At one stage Earle argued that “a few dry leaves” on the floor, which she felt obligated to remove, aggravating her back pain, were “a health and safety hazard, in particular they created a trip and fall risk”. This, the tribunal said, “was an example of Miss Earle’s willingness to exaggerate and embellish her account of events in an attempt to manufacture a weightier claim”.
However, a major issue, according to the ruling, was Earle’s “inability to say the firm’s name when answering the phone to clients”. Whilst the tribunal accepted that the name “is certainly something of a mouthful”, it did not agree that it was a “difficult or unreasonable task” for a receptionist to perform.
The tribunal said: “A new member of staff could have overcome the problem by practice or having the name to hand, in writing, when answering the phone, but for whatever reason Miss Earle was unable answer the phone to the respondent’s satisfaction.”
“It was the manner in which Miss Earle refused to accept her own obvious shortcomings which further undermined her credibility,” it added.
All of Earle’s claims ultimately failed. Firstly, the tribunal said that she did not meet the statutory definition of disability. Even if she had, she had not informed the firm at any stage, and she was not required to perform any work that discriminated against her.