Perjury and reasonable adjustments to matrix

Hi, I’m hoping someone could give some advice.

I’m a layperson and will be representing my sister at tribunal later this month, she has been deemed disabled by the tribunal at a pre hearing review.

She didn’t think she was disabled at the time and was made redundant via a matrix. There are two places on the matrix that reasonable adjustments should have been made, there seems to be enough indicators (knowledge) that her employer could be reasonably expected to deem her disabled and should have made the adjustments.

Firstly, the perjury part.

Two services where combine into one, the managers of each service scored the matrix. My sister’s manager is the person that knew that she could have been disabled and never made the adjustments. Now my sister’s manager was off ill and didn’t score this at all, but she will be testifying that she did.

I’m pretty sure I can reveal her lie during cross-examination. So my quandary is this:

Get her caught on the lie or ignore this, as she was the one that should have suggested the reasonable adjustments?

Secondly, one of the reasonable adjustments should have been on absences, but the problem I have is it wouldn’t have made any difference to her score. Is there a way to frame a legal argument so that it is discrimination? I.e. There was still injury to feelings

Any feedback would be great

Thanks in advance

Jim

If what you say here is accurate, I am astounded you have got this far. I hope you have more to rely on.

If she did not think she was disabled, and did not know she was disabled, then it isomething of an uphill argument to say that the employer did not know but ought to have done, when she herself did not.

You do not have ebidence of perjury - be careful about allegations which you cannot substantiate. A manager being off ill does not mean that they did not do the scoring - do you know for a fact that the manager did not do the scoring at home whilst off ill? No, you do not. Managers working from home during illness or time off is hardly unheard of, especially in matters such as redundancies where time is of the essence.

And no - injury to feelings is not relevant to a tribunals jusgement (although how they could have injured her feelings about a disability she knew nothing about is hard to enviasge). Injury to feelings may be an element of award after one wins, but it has nothing to do with the actual case and evidence. If an adjustment to the score on sickness absence makes no difference to the final coring for redundancy, then the best case secenario is that you may win on the technicality that the employer ought to have made an adjustment if that is deemed reasonable by the tribunal, but will get no award are only a minimal award, because the result would have been the same even had they originally done so.

Thanks SarEl,

This case has a more complicated history than what I have described. I have just explained a little about the endgame. There is a document that has the initials of the three scorers of the matrix and the manager in question is not on it. I am not going to make any accusations, I was just going to expose this fact during cross-examination and not make a fuss about it and carry on with the cross examination.

The manager in question's illness was mental health related. I am aware of what is required for this case, the manager in question made adjustments to my sister shifts to accommodate her inability to do sleepover duties due to illness. This is one example of her knowledge (there are plenty more)

So if my sister’s manager and the two other managers involved in the matrix scoring, all say my sister’s manager was involved in the scoring under oath and I can expose that she wasn't involved, should I expose the lie (not accuse anyone of lying) is there any point doing this? will it benefit my sisters case?

Thanks again

Jim

Well since I have utterly no idea what your sisters case is it would be difficult to say what benefits it! I can only comment on what you say:

(a) making an adjustment to support someone who has been ill is not the same thing as knowing that condition is or may be a disability. Especially since your sister didn't know, and if she didn't, why should they?

(b)Being ill, or having a mental health problem still doesn't mean that they did not do the marking, or particpate in the marking. Your argument is dangerously close to being discriminatory in itself! Be careful. And if you successfully argue that the only manager who may have known about a disability didn't participate... well you are arguing that they didn't discriminate because the other managers could not have reasonably been expected to make adjustments for something they know nothing about! Since your sister didnn't know and therefore never informed the employer, and your case is based around the fact that one manager who was off sick at the time and therefore couldn't have score her, then no discrimination took place!

(c) If the sickness absnece score makes no difference to the overall score then I fail to see the point of claiming the redundancy was unfair - the same outcome would have happened no matter what her sickness absence score was.

Thanks SarEl,

a) As I say, there is a big complicated history to this case and appreciate you can only give advice on the limited information I have provided. I'm pretty much settled on how I will tackle this issue.
b) I too have reservations about revealing the lie as it may harm my sister’s case. I just wasn't sure if there was any benefit if 3 of the respondent’s witnesses lie under oath. How would that be viewed by the tribunal, would it damage anything they have said or say to the tribunal thereafter, there are other areas where they are going to lie, these maybe exposed during cross examination (no accusation) What is the legal position of a witness committing perjury on several occasions at a tribunal? Does it benefit the Claimant?
c) The unfair dismissal is another issue (100% winnable) and she isn't relying on discrimination only. They have admitted they didn’t adjust the absence score (absences which they caused – part of the history) but it wouldn’t have made any difference. The ‘named comparator’ was one point ahead, if it had been a tie break then my sister would have lost out due to the absences i.e. more days without adjustments - way less days with adjustments. There is another area where discrimination took place, but I was looking for anyway I can at least put up a good fight on this point. Would you recommend conceding this point?


thanks again

Jim

Believing someone lied under oath and proving it are two very different things. A tribunal will make their own determination of what is true or not, but I cannot see how proving this lie helps your sister at all - quite the contrary, it could damage her. But that is based on not knowing the case.

If my sister’s manager did not have any input in the matrix scoring or compilation then the people involved in the scoring would have to obtain their information, I assume from documented evidence on file. In this respect they would have looked at her absences and seen that there were 3 episodes of depression, which resulted 43, 36 and 94 days of absence, none of the other pool members had anything near these absence amounts. They would have found that there was a risk assessment in place for this depression.

They would have found that the 96 days absence was caused by one of their employees trying to force her to come off her medication (this issue was time-barred but is still knowledge/history)

In the pre hearing review the respondent submitted the following to indicate time-bar of the event above:

It is submitted that it is clear that by the end of April 2010 the Claimant knew of disability discrimination, that she might be (or indeed was) disabled and that she may have a claim against the respondent.

Could this not also be leveled at the respondent?

Sorry for waffling on and I really appreciate your time and feedback.

Thanks

Jim

Possibly - but I am sorry - you are asking me for legal argument when I do not have details of the case. This site isn't suitable for, nor do we give, legal advice.

Thanks again SarEl,

Sorry for putting you in that position, I've ended up giving you more information than you needed. I think I will avoid chasing the lie and if it comes out during the witness examinations. I will fall back on what I have mentioned in my previous post. I have been searching the Internet for hours trying to get some answers and you have shed some light on issues with a couple of posts. J

Thanks again

Jim

p.s. the issue that was time-barred in my previous post, would my sister be able to pursue a personal injury claim under "liability for employee stress"?

Sorry - personal injury is an entirely different area of law, and not mine. But I would have to say that from what I do know (which is more than most lay people) that liabaility for stress is almost impossible to prove, her mental health history will not only muddy the water but ensure that she is dragged through the mud, it will take many years, and couldn't be done without a lawyer. If she wasn't depressed before she will be near suicidal by the end of a case like that. I wouldn't even try to put someone through it.

And it isn't that you have put me in any position - it's just that the law has many complexities and shades of grey. I can give people general pointers (yes, that's probably unfair dismissal), but detailed advice on a case that is ongoing, and which I have no information about, means that you tell me 20% of a specific part of a case - not even the whole case - and miss out 80%. If you missed out only 5%, that 5% could contain a crucial fact that you don't know about and neither do I because I don't know detail. So I tell you entirely the wrong thing. This is particularly true of complex cases because there is so much case law, and some of it appears (and occasionally is!) in conflict with others, and a tiny detail can entirely change everything.