After succeeding in her employment claim against Oldham based firm Inaaya Solicitors Limited, a paralegal was awarded more than £40,000.

Ms Saima Kauser, who had started to work as a paralegal for the company in 2016, could not work full time due to her disability.   

The Manchester employment tribunal had previously ruled that Ms Kauser’s redundancy was unfair because there was no objective justification for it, and she could have continued her role as part time employee.

The tribunal felt that the redundancy process run by Inaaya Solicitors was run with the intention of dismissing her. The judge was also critical of the managing director Taher Shad, business development manager Mohammed Shafiq and HR manager Fareena Naz Siddiqi. He felt that in effect they made up the management team of the company.

The judge said that he found the witnesses not to be credible of various evidential issues, in one case how none of them knew who had deleted Ms Kauser's HR records.

The tribunal was also surprised that apparently the witnesses were not interested in the serious data breach, how it happened, or who was responsible for it. The tribunal did not believe that they had been told the truth.

Other evidence which came to light was the claim that no one was able to contact the external solicitor who was apparently handling the appeal against the rejection of Ms Kauser’s grievance. 

Mr Shad stated that he knew nothing more of her other than she was a solicitor who had done locum work for the company in the past.

The tribunal felt that he would have had details for her as he would have paid her, so the suggestion that she was uncontactable was incredible. The tribunal did not accept that they had heard the truth concerning the solicitor Ms Sheikh.

Ms Kauser began working for Isaac Abrahim Solicitors and later transferred to Inaaya in 2016. Her disability of chronic pain meant that she worked as a part time employee.

In November 2022, Inaaya decided to move from road traffic accident (RTA) work to housing repair and they decided that staff would need to work full time in this area.

This was in effect the only reason and criteria for Ms Kauser’s dismissal, namely her inability to work full time due to her disability.

 Ms Kauser was an experienced paralegal with plenty of litigation experience and had worked on RTA along with debt matters for several years.

There was no evidence to suggest that the claimant would not be able to learn another role given appropriate opportunity.

Shortly after Ms Kauser was made redundant, two job adverts were posted by Inaaya which included the role with RTA and debt litigators, one of which stated that part time workers were acceptable.

The tribunal declined to accept Mr Shad and Mr Sharif's testimony that they were unaware of the adverts.

The tribunal found that the criteria in Ms Kauser’s case, namely to become full time in order to avoid redundancy, was not genuine. The potential for job share had not been discussed during her redundancy process. 

Additionally, the firm posted for a part time position after she had been dismissed. This part time position would have been well within her competence.

The scoring system which was created for the redundancy exercise was not credible as the claimant scored arbitrary, and the company did not take any reasonable steps to offer Ms Kauser any suitable alternative position.

Judge Finklin stated that the process was set in place to dismiss Ms Kauser. He further stated that dismissal was not a ‘proportionate means of achieving the legitimate aim to maintain service levels and run a profitable firm.’

A less discriminatory route could have been selected by opting for a job share or offering Ms Kauser the part time job which had been advertised.

Another point in the favour of Ms Kauser was that she was required to clock in and out during medically prescribed breaks every hour. The tribunal found this unfavourable treatment because there was ‘no legitimate aim to this practise.’

The tribunal ruled that Ms Kauser had been unfairly dismissed, subjected to detriment as a part time worker. She was also discriminated against because of her disability and the company had failed to make any reasonable adjustments.

Ms Kauser’s claim of sex discrimination failed as the tribunal ruled there was no evidence that her sex had anything to do with her dismissal. Her claim for pregnancy discrimination was dismissed as it was out of time.

In a remedy judgement the tribunal ruled that Inaaya should pay Ms Kauser a total of £41,412 along with £362.70 as remedy for the firm’s failure to provide written particulars of employment. 

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