Employment Law Case Study Assignment: Termination of Pregnant Employee – Legal Risks & Remedies

Advanced Elective in Employment Law 2025

Your client is Mr John Murphy, Managing Director of Thrifty Plant Hire Limited (‘the
business’). Your client has sought your advice following his receipt of a solicitor’s letter
sent on behalf of a former employee of the business, Ms Sylvia Grey, whose
employment Mr Murphy terminated some two weeks ago on Friday 2 May 2025.

Ms Grey successfully interviewed for the position of Yard Manager with the business in
November 2024. Her employment in that role commenced on 2 January 2025. Mr
Murphy personally interviewed Ms Grey as he considered the role of Yard Manager very
central to the e.ective operation of the business. Mr Murphy was very impressed with
the breadth of experience that Ms Grey spoke about at the interview. She had previously
worked as a logistics manager in a wholesale distribution company and elaborated at
interview on the range of transferrable skills she said she had acquired in that role that
would be of benefit to her should she be successful in being appointed to the position
Mr Murphy had on o.er.

Mr Murphy tells you that he likes e.iciency and has no time for ‘paperwork’ and
consequently has more or less eliminated paper from the business, including when it
comes to Human Resources, internal communications and general administration, all
of which he tells you is conducted through a bespoke App. According to your client, Ms
Grey ‘would have been aware’ that her appointment was subject to an initial
probationary period of six months but accepts that he never formalised that in any
written communication with Ms Grey.

It was understood that as Yard Manager, Ms Grey’s primary responsibility was to ensure
that the public areas where the machinery for hire was parked was maintained in good
order and that all machines were cleaned promptly on return from hire and sent to the
workshop for servicing as appropriate. This required Ms Grey to be able to drive tractors,
forklifts and other heavy machinery and plant to and from the workshop as needed and
to park them in an orderly sequence. The role also required her to develop good
communication with the sta. in the sales o.ice, the workshop and in the cleaning bay.

Mr Murphy unfortunately received regular complaints from other Managers that Ms Grey
did not appear to be up to the job. Mr Murphy tells you that he spoke to her regularly and
explained to her how she might improve her performance and work on building
relationships with colleagues.

On or around 28 April 2025, it appears that Ms Grey confided to a female colleague in
the o.ice that she was about six weeks pregnant but asked her not to communicate
that to anyone else and especially not to Mr Murphy. That week was a particularly busy
and tense week in the business as everybody was preparing for a visit to take place the
following week of a delegation from a well-regarded Japanese heavy machinery
manufacturer as part of negotiations between the business and that manufacturer to
stock and sell its products. Mr Murphy was anxious to make as good as an impression
as possible and told Ms Grey that he wanted the yard in particular to be in pristine
condition for the anticipated visit.

On Friday 2 May, Ms Grey went to the nearby local authority o.ices with the Transport
Manager, Ivan Jones, whom she had come to regard as a trusted colleague, to tax a
number of new vehicles recently purchased by the business. On the return journey, Ms
Grey told Ivan that she was pregnant and also asked him not to divulge this to Mr
Murphy as she would tell him directly in due course, in her own time. When Ms Grey and
Mr Jones arrived back in the yard they were both summoned immediately to Mr
Murphy’s o.ice. Mr Murphy told Mr Jones that he needed him to be a witness to the
conversation he wished to have with Ms Grey.

Mr Murphy told Ms Grey that he regretted that things had come to the point that they
had but that, in his view, Ms Grey had not lived up to the potential he had believed she
had and as a result he was letting her go. He also told her that he had made repeated
e.orts since January to assist her to perform well in her role but that any improvements
in her performance always appeared to be short-lived. Mr Murphy made much of what
he said was the very shabby condition of the yard just days before the delegation from
Japan was due to visit. Finally, he told Ms Grey he was letting her go ‘there and then’ with
two weeks’ pay in lieu of notice. He handed her a pre-prepared letter to that e.ect. Mr
Jones did not say anything in the course of the meeting and did not mention that Ms
Grey had told him earlier that day about her pregnancy. When Mr Murphy handed the
letter to Ms Grey, she then told him that she was seven weeks pregnant. Mr Murphy did
not react other than to say that he wished her well in the future.