Jonathan Jones, who was employed by Jewson at its outlet in Cardigan in Wales, suffered a stroke in April 2009 and was dismissed on the grounds of incapacity after five months of sick leave.
Law firm Jackson Osborne, which took his case, said that before his illness, Jones had been averaging over 60 hours working time per week, was not taking his full entitlement of holidays and was consistently carrying over a considerable proportion of untaken holiday each year.
Jones had signed a 48-hour opt out agreement under the Working Time Regulations and the firm had a clear expectation that branch managers would work more than their contracted hours.
After the stroke, Jones’s doctor said the manager needed to avoid stress at work.
Jones and his area director, in conjunction with Jewson’s human resources department, agreed that no role at the firm was going to be without stress and the company dismissed him.
At a liability hearing in August 2010, an employment tribunal in Cardiff decided the dismissal was unfair and amounted to disability discrimination by reason of failure to make reasonable adjustments.
On 6 July this year, the tribunal ordered Jewson to pay Jones £390,870, including £15,000 for injury to feelings and an uplift of around £18,000 as a penalty for unreasonable failure to follow the ACAS Code of Practice on disciplinary and dismissal procedures.
Jackson Osborne said that Jewson had assumed that Jones’s condition was so severe that his health was at risk if he returned to work in any role, and it was complacent in accepting that its practice of requiring long hours was necessary.
The tribunal found that some reallocation of duties and additional managerial support could have created a less stressful environment for Jones.
It also decided that if a less stressful working environment could be created, then it would also have been reasonable to allow him more time to recover so that he could return to it.
