No attendance v Mr. Howson, Senior Litigation Consultant — 2021

Ms Juliet Davies was employed by Ivory Cottage Limited from 6 January 2020 to 22 September 2020 as an administrative assistant. By a claim form dated 14 February 2021 she brought a claim described in the judgment as automatic unfair dismissal following allegedly making protected interest disclosures. At a preliminary hearing on 27 July 2021, Employment Judge Cookson ordered her to provide by 13 August 2021 details of the disclosure of information she said she had made by telephone and email to Ofsted and to John Leachman. The respondent wrote to remind her on 9 August 2021, but she did not provide the ordered particulars.

The respondent then applied to strike out the claim on 16 August and 7 September 2021, and the tribunal proceeded in her absence under Rule 47 after she emailed on 1 October 2021 that she would not attend and did not respond to attempts to contact her. Applying Rule 37 and the authorities it cited on strike out, active pursuit, and protected disclosures, the tribunal held that the claimant had not actively pursued the case because she had repeatedly failed to comply with directions and had left the respondent without knowing the case it had to meet. It also held, in the alternative, that the pleaded claim had no reasonable prospect of success because the claimant had not identified the actual disclosures said to amount to a qualifying and protected disclosure under section 43B ERA 1996.

The judgment therefore records no remedy or monetary award. The tribunal noted the draconian nature of strike out and the need for caution with litigants in person, but concluded this was an obvious case in which the claim should be struck out.