After suffering severe pain, he was called to another meeting in July 2021, and was excluded from the WhatsApp working group conversation due to sickness absence. Ultimately, Brosnan resigned in December of the same year due to not receiving any correspondence from his superiors regarding his complaints.
At the hearing before employment adjudicator Sarah George, it was confirmed that Brosnan was told by a company director that he had not been added to the group chat due to his sickness absence, suggesting that the reason behind his exclusion was unjustified.
As a result, the court awarded plumber Brosnan £134,411 in compensation for the company’s unreasonable behaviour. This was calculated as £15,000 in compensation for injury to feelings, £7,000 in compensation for personal injury, and over £25,000 in future loss of earnings.
This story shows the importance of providing a legitimate justification for excluding employees from chat groups in social media applications, even if they are absent, and highlights that the law protects the rights of employees and punishes unfair corporate behavior towards them. This story also reflects shifts in the relationship of law to technology and digital applications in our daily lives.
