Miss A Kolusheska v The UK Law Firm Ltd: 2401268/2024

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS

Case No 2401268/2024

Between

Miss A KolusheskaClaimant

The UK Law Firm LtdRespondent

Before

Employment Judge KM Ross

In person for claimant

Date 4 June 2025

JUDGMENT

[1]The claimant’s claim that she was automatically unfairly dismissed for making protected disclosures pursuant to Section 103A Employment Rights Act 1996 is not well founded and fails.

[2]The claimant’s claim that she was automatically unfairly dismissed for asserting a statutory right, namely to be paid wages (for overtime) that were payable, pursuant to Section 104 Employment Rights Act 1996 is not well founded and fails.

[3]The claimant’s claim that she suffered detriments for making protected disclosures pursuant to Section 47B Employment Rights Act is not well founded and fails. Case No. 2401268/2024 2

REASONS

[1]The claimant was employed by the respondent as a Paralegal between 6 July 2023 and 30 November 2023. (The claimant worked for the respondents prior to this on a consultancy basis from 22 October 2022).

[2]The claimant came to the UK as a sponsored skilled worker. She was based in the Respondent’s Manchester office. We find this was a small office consisting of the claimant and her line manager Ms Kolanska, a director of the respondent. Later a work experience intern was also engaged to assist the claimant with administrative tasks. There was also a larger office in Bolton with other fee earners and staff.

[3]The work the claimant was engaged to work on was related to Immigration applications.

[4]The claimant was dismissed by the respondent because of reasons relating to conduct and capability: they stated she had failed to respect and follow procedure and policy related to reporting attendance and punctuality. They also relied on the claimant’s performance not being to the expected standard.

[5]The claimant considered that the real reason she was dismissed was because she made protected disclosures to the respondent and in the alternative, she was dismissed for requesting overtime payments. She also alleged that she had suffered detriments for making protected disclosures.

[6]The case was case managed by Employment Judge Butler at a Case Management Hearing on 12 September 2024.

Judge Butler prepared a list of issues which are relevant to this case.

[8]It was agreed that there was no time limits issue and accordingly we did not address that issue.

[9]We heard from the claimant. For the respondent we heard from Ms Kalanoska and from Mr More. We received a witness statement on behalf of the respondent from Mr Dhokia but we attached no weight to it because he did not attend to give evidence.

[10]We had an agreed bundle of documents of 447 pages (page 447 was disclosed on the second day of the hearing). We also had some additional documents, to which the claimant did not object, supplied by the respondent.

The Law.

[11]The relevant law in relation to detriments and dismissal for making protected disclosures is found at sections 43B, s47, 48 and103A Employment Rights Act 1996. We had regard to the well-known cases of Cavendish Munro Professional Risks Management Limited -v- Geduld

2010 ICR 325

EAT and Kilraine -v- Wandsworth London Borough Council

2018 ICR 1850

CA, as well as the two cases relied upon by the parties in their submissions. Case No. 2401268/2024 3

[12]The law in relation to unfair dismissal for asserting a statutory right is found at section 104 Employment Rights Act 1996. Unfair Dismissal

[13]It was not disputed that the claimant was dismissed with effect from 30 November 2023. The issue for the Tribunal was: was the reason or principal reason for dismissal that the claimant made a protected disclosure? (Section 103A ERA 1996) If so, the claimant would be regarded as unfairly dismissed.

[14]When considering a claim for unfair dismissal for making a protected disclosure or “whistleblowing” as it is commonly known, the Tribunal must first consider whether the claimant made disclosures which were protected and qualifying within the meaning of Section 43B ERA 1996.

[15]Therefore, the Tribunal turned to consider the issues identified at paragraph 4.1 of Judge Butler’s List of Issues. See page 72-3. The first issue is: did the claimant make one or more qualifying disclosures as required in Section 43B Employment Rights Act 1996? The Tribunal had to decide: - (i) What did the claimant say or write? When? To whom? The claimant said she made disclosures on two occasions. The first alleged protected disclosure (PD1) was as follows: In August 2023 during a discussion verbally over the phone to Ms Kalanoska, whilst she was in North Macedonia, the claimant said she stated: “I often get questions from clients around how data is handled, specifically payment info, as this was important when making applications”. Before then raising that the respondent needed a client care letter and that this was important to maintain the law firm’s integrity. The claimant said she considered that to be a failure of a legal obligation, that being that the regulatory body for immigration advisors requires all advisors to provide clients with client care letters which include terms and conditions and informs of how to complain mechanisms.

[16]There was a dispute about what the claimant said to Ms Kalanoska on this occasion.

[17]The claimant and Ms Kalanoska both agreed that there was a telephone discussion while Ms Kalanoska was in North Macedonia and the claimant was at work in Manchester. We rely on the evidence of Ms Kalanoska that at this time her mother was terminally ill in North Macedonia. We find she was absent from the office from 17 August 2023 until 4 September 2023 to attend to her mother in North Macedonia. We find she then returned to the UK but travelled back again to Macedonia on 13 September 2023 following her mother’s admission to hospital and stayed in Macedonia until 7 October 2023. Her mother died on 28 September 2023. We rely on her evidence throughout the period of her absence apart from the day her mother died and two or three Case No. 2401268/2024 4 days after the funeral Ms Kolanoska remained in close, regular contact with both clients and colleagues in the UK.

[18]In cross examination the claimant said that this telephone conversation took place in late August, and we find that is consistent with Ms Kalanoska’s evidence. We find there was a conversation about client care letters. We rely on the claimant’s evidence that she did say “I often get questions from clients around how data is handled, specifically payment info as this was important when making applications”. We rely on both her evidence and the evidence of Ms Kalanoska that this was discussed. However, we are not satisfied that the claimant stated: “the respondent needed a client care letter and this was important to maintain the law firm’s integrity”. We find that the claimant’s memory is unreliable on this point. It seems to us highly implausible that the claimant informed Ms Kalanoska that the respondent needed to send a client care letter.

[19]The claimant herself had been informed by Ms Kalanoska that she must send a client care letter. See page 109. This is an email dated 1 August 2023 before the conversation in late August. The email from Ms Kolanska to the claimant states the client care letter (referred to as “CL”) must “always be provided on a letterhead paper as it is one of the first documents we send to the client. CCL is basically our contract with the client (hence its importance and we should never omit this step.)” It seems completely implausible that the claimant herself having been told by Ms Kalanoska, a director in the respondent and the claimant’s line manager that she should always send a Client Care letter, should only a short time later inform the respondent that they should do this.

[20]There was no dispute that during the period when Ms Kalanoska was away from the office there was a delay in client care letters being sent out. We find that the process for sending out client care letters is illustrated at page 324 whereby Ms Kalanoska asked the claimant to prepare a client care letter. The claimant then replied with the draft for review. However, the claimant did not say in her protected disclosure described in the list of issues that client care letters were being sent out late, nor did she suggest in cross examination that sending client care letters late was the disclosure. She suggested that they were not being sent at all: “the respondent needed a client care letter and this was important to maintain the law firm’s integrity”.

[21]We have reminded ourselves of Cavendish Munro Professional Risks Management Limited -v- Geduld

2010 ICR 325

EAT, there must be a disclosure of factual information. We reminded ourselves of Kilraine -v- Wandsworth London Borough Council

2018 ICR 1850

CA that in order for a statement or disclosure to be a qualifying disclosure, it has to have a sufficient factual content and specificity such as is capable of tending to show one of the matters listed in 43B (1) Employment Rights Act 1996.

[22]The claimant said she knew the clients were not receiving the client care letter. When asked how she knew this, she stated clients were raising issues which would be covered in the client care letter. She therefore made the assumption they had not received the client care letter. Case No. 2401268/2024 5

[23]The Employment Tribunal is not satisfied that a client raising an issue which might be covered in a client care letter is evidence that they had not received a client care letter. There are many reasons why clients may raise issues even when they are included in a detailed letter with a lot of information, which was the nature of the client care letter.

[24]We find the claimant knew from the start of her employment she must send out client care letters. The letters in the bundle show that she was doing exactly that: preparing client care letters and emailing them to Miss Kalanoska before the alleged disclosure, for example see pages 324 and 320. The Tribunal finds it makes no sense and is implausible that the claimant raised the disclosure in the terms she said she did namely inform the respondent they needed to send a client care letter. We therefore find it was not said.

[25]The claimant admitted in cross-examination that the conversation relied upon was over two years ago and was hard to recall. Having found that the claimant did not make a disclosure of information in accordance with the way she relied upon in PD1 and having regard to the principle in Geduld the claim fails at that point. In addition, we find the claimant failed to provide any information to suggest the comment which was made about clients asking questions in any way related to breach of a legal obligation as required in Kilraine.

[26]For these reasons we find PD1 did not amount to a protected disclosure, and it is not necessary for us to consider any other issues in relation to it.

[27]We turn to disclosure two “PD2”:- “on 18 September 2023 the claimant says she sent an email to Ms Kalanoska which was a follow up to the conversation of August 2023 where she explained “that obtaining the appropriate CRM extension would overcome the issue of generating key documents such as client care letters and invoices and letters of authorities”. P73.

[28]We turn to the first issue, did the claimant disclose information. The email which the claimant says was PD2 is found at page 149 of the bundle, which is dated 14 September, not 18th. It is an email from the claimant to Ms Kalanoska, copying in a work experience intern. The email is a positive and friendly email expressing gratitude to Ms Kolanska for permitting the claimant and the work experience intern to attend a live training session on “Cleo”, which is part of CRM , the software system used by the respondent. There is no reference in the email to a failure to send client care letters.

[29]The claimant remarks that “personally what piqued my interest the most and was also endorsed as highly valuable by a solicitor from Spain is the automatic generation of client care letters and closing letters through Cleo.”. The claimant goes on to state she has already brought to the intern’s attention “the importance of being able to generate essential documents such as client care letters and closing care letters using Cleo”.

[30]We find the training took place in or around 13 September 2023 (see email at page 146 where the claimant and intern are invited to attend one week from September 6, 2023). We also find on 13 September the claimant sent a message to Ms Kalanoska “let’s do client care letters, closing letters and key Case No. 2401268/2024 6 documents with three clicks”. We find that this was a reference to the claimant’s suggestion of automating the client care letters, which both the claimant and Ms Kalanoska agree they had discussed. We find there is no disclosure of information to a failure to send client care letters ,linked to a breach of a legal obligation in that email. There is nothing capable of amounting to a disclosure of information as required by Geduld. Neither is any disclosure linked to a breach of a legal obligation as required by Kilraine.

[31]The claimant suggested in her evidence that in this email she “used the opportunity to discretely remind Ms Kalanoska of our previous discussion regarding the omission of the client care letters”. She said: “I worded my email to avoid directly referencing the issue as the trainee was copied into the correspondence”.

[32]The Tribunal finds that this is implausible. If the claimant was sensitive about the trainee (also referred to as the intern) being copied into in the email containing a disclosure about client care letters, she could have sent an additional email omitting to copy in the trainee.

[33]There is nothing at all in the email at page 149 to alert the reader that this is a disclosure of information related to the respondent’s failure to send client care letters. The Tribunal finds that factually there is no disclosure of information,and the claimant has not shown connection with failure to comply with a legal obligation. PD2 is not a protected disclosure and therefore it is not necessary for us to consider any other issue.

[34]The claimant has failed to show that either of her protected disclosures were protected within the meaning of Section 43B Employment Rights Act 1996. Therefore, both her claim for automatic unfair dismissal for whistleblowing and her claim for whistleblowing detriments fail at this point. However, in case we are wrong about that and for the sake of completeness the Tribunal has gone on to consider causation. Dismissal

[35]Having regard to the fact that the claimant was employed by the respondent for less than two years, she has no entitlement to bring a claim for “ordinary” unfair dismissal pursuant to Section 95 and Section 98 Employment Rights Act 1996.

[36]The question for the Tribunal was whether the claimant could adduce facts which could suggest a reason or the principal reason for her dismissal was that she made the protected disclosures set out in the list of issues. There was no evidence whatsoever to connect the alleged disclosures (which the Tribunal has found were not protected) to the claimant’s dismissal.

[37]The alleged disclosures occurred in August and on 14 September 2023. They were therefore not close in time to the claimant’s dismissal in November. 2023. It is difficult to understand why a respondent might want to dismiss the claimant for raising an issue about not sending client care letters. On the claimant’s own evidence, suggestions she made in relation to clients expressing discomfort about sharing their credit card details over the phone Case No. 2401268/2024 7 for payments and a suggestion of an automated system for issuing client care letters and letters of authority (rather than a manual process) met with enthusiasm from the respondent. The claimant herself said Ms Kalanoska said “this is good it shows you have a conscience” and “bravo you think of everything”.

[38]It also seems implausible that the respondent dismissed the claimant for raising concerns about sending client care letters when the respondent told the claimant in no uncertain terms on 1st August, before any alleged disclosures, that client care letters must always be sent.

[39]The reason the respondent relied on for terminating the claimant’s contract were problems with the working relationship, in particular, the claimant “failed to respect and follow procedure and policy related to reporting attendance and punctuality” and “your performance has not been to the standard expected” and concerns that her attention to detail was not sufficient.

[40]It was not disputed that there were issues during the claimant’s employment about punctuality and Ms Kalanoska became increasingly concerned that the claimant almost never started work at 9.30 am when her contracted hours were 9.30 to 6pm (see contract page 101). There is documentary evidence in the bundle that the claimant was late for work. The claimant conceded she was late for work on four occasions. Ms Kalanoska who dismissed the claimant said that the claimant rarely started work at 9.30 am and was frequently late. This problem became of particular concern from October onwards, see page 197 and 198.

[41]The Tribunal finds there is sufficient evidence for the explanation relied upon by Ms Kalanoska for the respondent’s termination of the claimant’s contract.

[42]The Tribunal now turns to the alternative basis in which the claimant asserted her claim for unfair dismissal which was pursuant to Section 104 Employment Rights Act 1996.

[43]In the claimant’s contract of employment, it states that “overtime will be made for additional hours worked at the same rate”, page 100. The claimant accepted in evidence that she was told “when the need for overtime work arises you will be expressly informed and asked (of course you will have the right to refuse to work overtime and be paid accordingly). See page 111: email of 1 August Ms Kalanoska to the claimant. The email also states “as you are a sponsored worker, we have an enhanced duty to monitor your attendance and we will prepare time sheets for this purpose. You are welcome to maintain your own records of working hours”.

[44]On 1 August 2023 having been told she needed to keep track of her hours the claimant confirmed “starting today I commit to keeping track of any overtime hours in the future whenever the need arises”.

[45]At the end of August, the claimant was asked how many hours of overtime she had worked that month by Ms Kalanoska. She replied: “I don’t know: write down 5”. Ms Kalanoska considered it must have been more than five Case No. 2401268/2024 8 hours and said: “I will write down 10”. There is no dispute that she was paid those 10 hours.

[46]On 2 November 2023 the claimant asked for overtime for September and October at page 107. She confessed that she had not kept track of those hours. She asked for 14 hours in September and 1 hour in October, page 217. Despite her failure to record the hours as required, the respondent agreed to pay 10 hours overtime for September, and 1 hour for October (page 218). In fact, later the respondent paid the full amount of overtime hours sought by the claimant.

[47]We turn to the claimant’s claim for dismissal for asserting a statutory right, i.e. failure to pay overtime. The claimant asked to be paid overtime just before she was dismissed by email of 2 September 2023 at page 217. She was dismissed the same day. The Tribunal is satisfied this was no more than coincidence. The respondent in the past had paid the claimant more overtime hours than she had requested. The claimant had consistently failed to record her overtime hours as she was required to do. Other than a close proximity in time from when she asked for the overtime and her dismissal, the Tribunal is not satisfied that there was any evidence whatsoever to connect the request for overtime to the claimant’s dismissal. The respondent was an employer who was willing to pay overtime and had done so in the past, in fact it had paid more than the amounts sought by the claimant. This is not consistent with an employer who was prepared to dismiss the claimant because she had asked for an overtime payment. Therefore that claim also fails.

[48]The Tribunal now turns to the claimant’s claim for public interest disclosure detriments. Once again there is no requirement for the Tribunal to consider the issue of causation because we have found there were no protected disclosures but in case we are wrong about that, we turn to causation for the sake of completeness.

[49]The first detriment relied upon by the claimant was “From September 2023 failing to provide the claimant with her pay slips unless the claimant specifically requested them. The claimant says “other employees were provided with them without having to request them”. See page 73-4.

[50]We rely on the evidence of Ms Kalanoska that the process for payslips was that they were sent to the firm by payroll, then sent to a particular director and then in turn sent to the individual manager, in this case Ms Kalanoska to send on to their team members-including the claimant. We find that the claimant was paid in arrears at the end of each month. We find that the claimant was sent her September payslip without requesting it -see page 178. We find the claimant was sent her October payslip -see page 216 -without requesting it, on 2 November. We find following her dismissal the claimant was sent her November payslip on 1 December, see page 284.

[51]The only payslip which the claimant had to chase was her payslip for August 2023. The claimant wrote to the respondent on 30 November 2023 asking for her August payslip stating: “I couldn’t locate the payslip for August” and “please can you provide that one for my records”. Ms Kalanoska wrote back Case No. 2401268/2024 9 promptly on the same day stating : “please find attached to this email the payslip for August 2023- apologies if this has not been sent to you earlier”.

[52]It is not disputed that in August and September 2023 Ms Kalanoska’s mother was terminally ill and that she was out of the country for significant periods of time. We accept her evidence that failure to send the claimant her August payslip was an oversight on her part. We find it was wholly unrelated to the claimant making any protected disclosure.

[53]We turn to the next detriment. Detriment 2 is recorded as being: “from the first week of October 2023 Ms Kalanoska’s attitude towards the claimant changed”. The claimant alleged: - (i) That she had been promised her own account on the CRM system but was not given that” p74.

[54]We find that the detriment relied upon by the claimant is factually inaccurate. The claimant said in evidence that she had been asking for her own account on the case management system from when she started in July 2023. It therefore cannot be evidence of Ms Kalanoska’s attitude changing towards her in October following her protected disclosures in August and September. Accordingly, given that this factually incorrect it cannot be a detriment.

[55]We turn to the next detriment: - Detriment 2:” That she was subject to rules by Ms Kalanoska that were made up on the spot.” P74.

[56]When pressed in cross examination what she meant by this the claimant said firstly that she was required to ring from the landline in the office to say that she had arrived at work. This is detriment (4) (which we will deal with below). She also said that she was required to travel to Bolton with Ms Kalanoska to be ready for 9.30 am or Ms Kalanoska would leave without her.

[57]The Tribunal is not satisfied that this is capable of amounting to a detriment. The claimant worked with Ms Kalanoska in the Manchester office where they were the only two employees. The respondent also had a Bolton office with other staff. The claimant’s contract of employment makes it clear that this was within her working hours and also makes it clear that the place of work is Bolton and Manchester. There is therefore no detriment to the claimant in being required to travel with Ms Kalanoska at 9.30 in the morning to the Bolton office and no detriment in being required to attend punctually.

[58]We turn to detriment 3 which is an allegation “that Ms Kalanoska began micromanaging her, this including overloading the claimant with work tasks from the moment she arrived at the office”. P74

[59]The Tribunal is not satisfied that this is factually correct. Once again, the claimant is relying on the period of time from the first week in October 2023 for the purposes of this alleged detriment. The information in the bundle shows that the claimant was required to work on detailed tasks at the start of her employment, see pages 394 onwards. In addition, we rely on the Case No. 2401268/2024 10 evidence of Ms Kalanoska to find that when the claimant complained in July and August that the workload was heavy the respondent immediately recruited an intern to assist the claimant. She was a school age intern to help the claimant (and no one else) on administrative issues. We also find the claimant was told that there was further support for her in the Bolton office.

[60]Accordingly we are not satisfied that Ms Kalanoska “micro managed the claimant when she overloaded the claimant with work tasks from October 2023.” We find that the claimant’s pattern of work was consistent from the beginning of her employment, and she considered herself to have a heavy workload and for that reason the respondent sought an intern to help her with administrative tasks. Even if we are wrong about that and Ms Kalanoska was micromanaging the claimant or overloading her with work there is no evidence to suggest that that only occurred from the first week of October or after the public interest disclosures.

[61]Detriment 4: “Ms Kalanoska started requiring the claimant to phone her when she arrived at work and when she left, this was despite the office proactive being that staff only recorded their working time through the personalised card system.” P74

[62]We find that only the claimant and Ms Kalanoska worked in the Manchester office. We find that for extensive periods in August and September Ms Kalonoska was abroad to care for her terminally ill mother. We find that Ms Kalonoska required the claimant to phone from the landline at the office so she knew the claimant was at work and we find the respondent had to record the claimant’s start and finish times at work for the purposes of the respondent’s duty to the Home Office under the conditions of her sponsorship under the skilled sponsored workers scheme. We find this was not an onerous requirement and cannot be regarded as a detriment. The claimant suggested that the respondent should have used the records to the building to know her start and finish time. We find that the electronic card access system the claimant is describing is a card system for entry to the building where the respondent’s Manchester office is based (along with other organisations) and is operated by a third party. We accept Ms Kalanoska’s evidence that the respondent had no immediate and direct access to that information.

[63]Even if we are wrong about this and detriment 4 is capable of amounting to a detriment there is no suggestion to show there is any connection with this requirement and the claimant’s protected disclosures. We rely on the evidence of Ms Kalanoska to find that she made the requirement of the claimant from the end of July 2023 and repeated it in August 2023 before her trip which commenced on 17 August 2023, which pre dated either of the protected disclosures.

[64]Detriment 5: “Ms Kalonoska ignored the claimant’s protected disclosures.” P74

[65]We find that this is factually incorrect. We find that insofar as the claimant raised issues in relation to the client care letters this was only about automation of the letters, or the information about clients having concerns about their credit card details. The claimant herself said that the respondent Case No. 2401268/2024 11 replied positively to this. In addition, the respondent sent the claimant on a training course on 13 September 2023 about the case management system and responded positively to the claimant’s suggestion of automation of client care letters. We find that there were no protected disclosures (for the reasons already stated) but so far as the claimant relies on raising concerns about client care letters not being automated the respondent replied positively to her suggestions and so this cannot be regarded as a detriment.

[66]At this point the Tribunal steps back in relation to each of the detriments. The Tribunal has found either that they were factually incorrect and do not amount to a detriment or if they are capable of amounting to a detriment there is nothing to suggest that the detriment is connected to any disclosed information made in a telephone call in August or in an email on 14 September 2023.

[67]For these reasons all the claimant’s claims fail.

[68]The claimant is clearly distressed about her employment being terminated by the respondent. However, she cannot bring a claim for ordinary unfair dismissal under s95 and s 98 Employment Rights Act 1996.

[69]She has tried to bring her claim for dismissal under the whistleblowing provisions or for asserting a statutory right, but her claim fails for the reasons given. _____________________________ Approved by Employment Judge KM Ross 4 June 2025