Lawyer awarded £114,000 in constructive dismissal case

The applicant to the tribunal, Katherine Hitchins, claimed she had been unfairly constructively dismissed and further alleged sex discrimination.

Babbe resisted both of Ms Hitchins’ claims.

However, an employment and discrimination tribunal found that she was unfairly constructively dismissed and was the subject of indirect sex discrimination. She was awarded £76,068 and £38,038 respectively.

A total of eight witnesses were heard at the six-day tribunal.

In regard to the unfair constructive dismissal, the tribunal panel heard how in November 2017 former Babbe lawyer Robert Varley had shown ‘overt hostility’ to being managed by Ms Hitchins, who had been tasked with changing the fortunes of its corporate department.

Babbe did not contest that Mr Varley might be difficult to manage and the company hoped that by giving him a significant pay increase on 1 January 2018 and by incentivising him to increase his compensation that he might ‘settle down’ under Ms Hitchins’ management.

The tribunal found that Mr Varley ‘motivated by frustration, revenge, or possibly anger, makes an allegation of sexual assault that appears, given the timing, to be maliciously motivated and is judged as false by the respondent’s [Babbe’s] investigation in May 2018’.

The tribunal said that Ms Hitchins had been given a tough assignment and was persuaded to accept it, despite her concerns about Mr Varley.

The tribunal heard that both managing partner Andrew Laws and equity partner Ian Swan ‘had reservations as to the veracity of the allegations, not assisted by the apparent lack of clarity by Robert Varley as to which date in 2017 the alleged assault occurred’.

‘This should have been ringing alarm bells at partnership level,’ the tribunal said.

Although Babbe were told in January 2018 of the allegation and received a formal complaint in February ‘there was a significant gap of two months’ before Ms Hitchins was informed.

The firm seemingly then supported Mr Vardey’s request for an external investigation by excluding HR from the investigation.

‘This casts doubt as to whether it was a balanced process and investigation; the playing field appears no longer level,’ the tribunal said.

An external consultant was appointed without written terms of reference and ran a ‘very unequal investigation’ that continued long after the dates and circumstances of the allegations were proved to be ‘extremely suspicious’.

Ms Hitchins was then prevented from seeking colleague/HR support as the process unfolded.

‘Effects of stress on Katherine Hitchins are either ignored or downplayed despite medical certificates and her evident distress in the workplace,’ the tribunal said.

‘The outcome of the investigation [that the allegation was false] is bafflingly communicated by the investigator first to Robert Varley, then to Andrew Laws and then later to [Katherine Hitchins].

‘There was – at a minimum – five days between Varley being informed of the outcome and then Hitchins.’

The firm were found not to have understood that Ms Hitchins needed some form of resolution, closure and restoration of her good name and reputation post-May 2018.

‘[They] failed to recognise there could have been many potential ways for Katherine Hitchins’ reputation to be boosted.

‘Overall, there are serious process issues and the overall approach, aided by [the investigator], lacks integrity and is significantly flawed.

‘This combined with [Babbe’s] dereliction of responsibility in their duty of care towards Hitchins eventually resulted in her resignation.’

Law firm's pay gap 'due to sex discrimination'

PAY disparities at the law firm Babbe were found to be because of indirect discrimination due to an employee’s gender.

Katherine Hitchins was awarded £38,038 after a tribunal found she was the subject of indirect sex discrimination relating to pay against her male colleagues.

She began working at Babbe on 11 January 2016 as a ‘consultant’ on a salary of £150,000 per year.

Written into the contract were conditions that pay and benefits were confidential between herself and Babbe.

Before resigning due to the false allegation of sexual assault, she had complained to the firm that there were unexplained discrepancies with her pay that needed to be corrected, as a male colleague was being paid over 50% more than her at the same time for the same role.

She had also been promoted twice without any change to her salary, while male colleagues’ salaries increased for promotions and in line with inflation.

In January 2017, Ms Hitchins’ salary was increased to £152,500 for ‘cost of living’.

She was promoted to salaried partner on 31 May 2017 and subsequently to head of department on 10 January 2018. Her salary remained unchanged at £152,500.

A male colleague was employed on a salary of £100,000 per year at the end of 2015, which rose to £120,000 on 1 January 2016.

He informed the tribunal that he was consistently among the top billers at the firm and was promoted to salaried partner on 1 February 2016 but did not receive a pay rise until 1 January 2017, when his pay was advanced to £130,000.

He was then awarded a further £20,000 pay rise the following year after a client lunch in 2017 when Ms Hitchins allegedly told him what she earned.

Ms Hitchins denied this and said her male colleague had worked it out by understanding her bonus scheme.

The lawyer claimed that, given his profitability to the firm, he was annoyed by the fact that Ms Hitchins was being paid more than he was, so he raised it with equity partner Ian Swan, who agreed to pay him £150,000.

The male colleague admitted discussing Ms Hitchin’s salary with another colleague. Given this conversation, his colleague was also aggrieved and joined him in approaching Mr Swan, who then awarded the second colleague an increase in salary.

Neither was penalised for passing on salary information – which is against the firm’s policy – but Ms Hitchins was.

The tribunal found that the reasoning behind refusing Ms Hitchins a raise but not her two colleagues was ‘fatally flawed’.

Another male colleague, who had been an employee of the firm since 2011, was head of a department at the same time as Ms Hitchins.

His starting salary was £120,000 but over five years it was increased multiple times to £240,000 on 10 January 2017.

The tribunal said: ‘With this complaint we have two heads of department, one on a base salary of £152,500 and the other on £240,000, a difference of £87,500 and a percentage difference of 57%.

It concluded that ‘it cannot find sufficient grounds to justify such a major differential’.

‘It was apparently left to partners to increase salaries in their departments as they thought fit with no moderation between the departments or between the genders,’ the tribunal said.

‘It was evident from [Babbe’s] evidence that they were pinning their hopes on the applicant and that, despite these headwinds, they appointed her for her potential to achieve a turnaround in the partnership’s finances; however there was no monetary increase for the applicant on 10 January 2018 or in subsequent months to reflect this very significant increase in responsibility.’

The tribunal said that it drew ‘the inference from such substantial increases for male employees that consciously or not the respondent [Babbe] was adopting a different pay regime toward the applicant in comparison with professional male colleagues’.

Senior staff were adamant no increases or failure to increase were for reasons of gender.