Miss G McPherson v Birmingham City Council — 2019

The judgment concerned a preliminary hearing on the respondent's application to strike out the claimant's first claim, or for a deposit order, and the claimant's application to amend her claims. The first claim, 1303044/2018, contained disability discrimination complaints arising during employment before the claimant resigned. An earlier judgment had found the claimant to be disabled only in respect of certain impairments and only from January 2019 or March 2019, after the first claim was presented on 11 June 2018.

Judge Doyle declined to defer the strike-out decision pending the claimant's appeal against the earlier disability-status judgment. Applying that earlier judgment, he concluded that the first claim had no reasonable prospect of success because the statutory basis for a disability discrimination claim was not made out for the relevant period. The first claim, including the section 26 harassment amendment, was struck out.

The claimant's applications to add associative disability discrimination, further disability-related harassment or direct discrimination, and equal pay complaints were refused. The tribunal found the proposed carer-related complaint was not framed as less favourable treatment because of another person's disability and that the further disability-related complaint was undermined by the earlier disability-status finding. The proposed equal pay complaint was treated as a new, poorly pleaded claim, advanced late and out of time in the tribunal, with the claimant retaining the possibility of bringing such a claim in another court with a longer limitation period.