Claimant v Bentley Motors Limited — 2019

This was the third preliminary hearing in a claim alleging sex and age discrimination. The respondent applied to strike out, or alternatively to obtain deposit orders in respect of, disputed allegations identified in its 4 November 2019 application letter. The tribunal applied rule 37 and rule 39(1), referring to the questions whether the claims had no reasonable prospect of success or little reasonable prospect of success, and considered the parties' skeleton arguments and some of the papers, including the claimant's grievance dated September 2017.

The tribunal said the respondent's concerns were, in substance, arguments to be made after the evidence had been heard. It noted that the case involved disputed facts, including an example allegation dated 12 January 2015, and that evidence would be needed before any alleged deficiencies in the claimant's case could properly be assessed. It also accepted that at least some of the material concerning the disputed allegations would in any event be relevant background and context to the justiciable claims.

On the indirect discrimination allegations, the tribunal said the PCP identified in Particular 15 was unusual and that the 'key factual questions' in paragraph 22 of the claimant's skeleton were not specifically directed to establishing the PCP. Even so, it was not persuaded that those allegations had no prospect or little prospect of success at that stage. The tribunal therefore made no order on either the strike-out application or the alternative deposit application.