Mr Hafeez Ahmed v Department for Work and Pensions — 2024

The preliminary hearing concerned claim 7, claim number 1303773/2022, and related applications in claim 3, claim number 1801971/2019. Claim 7 alleged failure to make reasonable adjustments in relation to the claimant accessing the 2022 Employee Deal while only being required to work his current working pattern. The claimant also applied to amend claim 7 to add a claim for discrimination arising from disability under s 15 of the Equality Act 2010.

The Tribunal compared claim 7 with findings made in the claimant's fifth claim, which had considered the Employee Deal, the claimant's disability-related concerns about working patterns, and the mechanisms under the Deal for considering individual circumstances and challenging disproportionate impact. It found that the substance of claim 7 and the proposed amendment concerned the same underlying factual issue about the claimant's working pattern requirements, even though the later claim related to a further opportunity to join the Employee Deal.

The Tribunal held that the relevant issues had already been determined and that issue estoppel applied. It therefore held that it had no jurisdiction to hear claim 7 and no jurisdiction to consider the application to amend it. The claimant's application to strike out the respondent's responses to claims 3 and 7 was refused; the Tribunal found it was neither abusive nor unreasonable for the respondent to change position and seek a preliminary hearing after the amendment application. Claim 3 was to proceed to a final hearing.