Partner fails in discrimination claim against City law firm

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Tribunal: Claimant made unsubstantiated allegations

An employment tribunal has comprehensively rejected a former Rosenblatt partner’s claim that he suffered discrimination on the grounds of race and for making a protected disclosure.

Employment Judge Emma Burns was critical of Noel Deans for making “serious, yet unsubstantiated” allegations during the hearing, in which he represented himself.

One was that the City firm – part of the listed RBG Holdings – had created for the trial bundle a fabricated version of witness statement about which he had been criticised during his work in 2019 on an employment claim being brought against Rosenblatt (the ‘SP claim’).

“The real reason that the claimant reacted as he did was that he was unhappy that [partner and compliance officer Anthony Field] was criticising his work,” she said.

“In our judgment, the claimant’s reaction was consistent with other conflict situations with colleagues. The claimant regularly defended his position by attacking the other person, often making unfounded or exaggerated accusations in the process.

“We find that his allegation that the respondents created a fabricated version of the witness statement is another example of this.

“Rather than show insight into his behaviour and acknowledge it when it was highlighted in cross-examination, the claimant’s response was to attack the respondents without any foundation.”

The claim of race discrimination, harassment, victimisation, constructive dismissal, unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal and making a protected disclosure was brought against the firm, senior partner Ian Rosenblatt, former chief executive Nicola Foulston and Mr Field.

Mr Deans is of African/Caribbean heritage and joined Rosenblatt as a salaried employment partner in May 2017, the first black partner to join the firm in its 30-year history. He resigned in February 2020.

A previous hearing had revealed that, at a dinner at Mr Rosenblatt’s house in April 2018, Ms Foulston admitted using a phrase containing the word “n****r” while addressing her colleagues about some difficulties with the prospective listing.

Mr Deans did not allege that the term was directed at him personally.

Ms Foulston apologised during the hearing and said she was “unable to explain” why she had said it.

The tribunal rejected Mr Deans’ claim that Mr Rosenblatt laughed in response; rather he was “offended by what Ms Foulston had said and admonished her in response”.

Though the word had the “fleeting” effect of creating an offensive environment, the complaint failed because it was out of time.

The tribunal did not grant an extension: “[Mr Deans] was fully aware that he could pursue the compliant if he wished to do so, but chose in the full knowledge of all his employment rights, not to take the matter any further, either internally or externally.

“In our judgment, he has only sought to revive it in order to cause maximum embarrassment to the respondents.”

The purported protected disclosure concerned the SP claim and Ms Foulston’s discovery that some of the emails that were caught by a specific disclosure order contained private financial information belonging to Mr Rosenblatt and another senior partner.

Mr Field, who had previously seen the information and was acting as the internal client, redacted it on the basis that it was irrelevant to the claim, and Mr Deans was told that he would not be allowed to see it.

Mr Deans argued that this meant he was unable to comply with his professional duty to the tribunal. He said he could not continue to act for the firm on the claim, which eventually settled.

He told Judge Burns that he genuinely believed it was likely that the firm was going to deliberately withhold evidence.

She said: “The difficulty we have with the claimant’s position is that the change in the disclosure process came about for a perfectly valid reason…

“Given that it was explained to him and the explanation made perfect sense in the circumstances, we conclude that any reasonable person in the claimant’s position would have accepted it rather than jump to the conclusion that the explanation had been invented to enable evidence to be supressed.”

The tribunal went on to hold that he did not “genuinely believe that the respondents were going to bury evidence”.

Judge Burns said: “We find that the true position was that the claimant was annoyed about not getting to see the emails, but rather than admit this directly, he tried to manipulate Ms Foulston and Mr Field into changing their position through arguing that his professional duty to the tribunal would be compromised and taking the dramatic step of withdrawing from acting.

“He anticipated that they would change their position, and try and persuade him to remain involved in the case, but when they did not, he had backed himself into a position from which he could not back down.”

The tribunal said Mr Deans had also not reasonably believed the disclosure was made in the public interest.

Rather, it was made “in his own self interest”, a view reinforced by his failure to take further steps after he stopped working on the case, such as reporting what had happened to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The specific allegations made by Mr Deans either failed on the facts or were not found to have occurred because of his race.

He received critical emails from Mr Rosenblatt, for example, but the tribunal found that “this type of robust criticism was not reserved for the claimant and was meted out by Mr Rosenblatt to others, regardless of seniority or race”.

The tribunal highlighted too “clear evidence” that Mr Deans’ colleagues had on occasion accused him, behind his back, of being lazy, a possible racist stereotype applied to black men. There were also derogatory comments about him, while some criticised him for not coming in to the office until late.

“In our judgment, none of the criticisms were unfounded at the time they were made. The claimant was regularly late into the office by choice and was not as responsive to emails and work requests as others expected.”

One other key event was after Mr Deans had sent his resignation letter, complaining about his treatment. Mr Rosenblatt issued a formal grievance, saying that only he and Mr Field, who were both Jewish, had been targeted.

He claimed too that Mr Deans had previously made a comment to him which he had taken to be antisemitic, but about which he had decided not to take action at the time.

Mr Rosenblatt then confronted Mr Deans in his office. The tribunal noted: “[He] admitted in his subsequent contemporaneous correspondence that he had ‘lost my cool’ and called him a ‘fucking antisemite’.”

It held that Mr Rosenblatt’s actions were not because of the Mr Deans’ race.

“We further reject this allegation because, ultimately what Mr Rosenblatt did was a protected act in itself.

“In our judgment, it would quite simply be wrong to hold that expressing a genuine concern about someone being racist towards you should be considered to be a detriment. Employees are entitled to make such allegations about their colleagues, hence the protections in the Equality Act 2010 exist.”