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It has long been the case that an employee can only claim ‘stigma damages’ if the employee’s difficulty in finding new employment is directly attributable to the dismissal and the recent case of Brown v Careham Hall has confirmed this.
The claimant was a care worker who was dismissed unfairly following allegations that she was ‘rough with residents’.
She claimed that her employer had prevented her from finding alternative work by providing her with an unfavourable reference.
The tribunal concluded that even if she had not been unfairly dismissed, she would still have been giving an unfavourable reference. It could not be concluded therefore that she could not gain new employment as a result of the dismissal; the difficulties were due to the reference and therefore did not attract compensation under section 123 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
