Mr J Odiase v World of Books Ltd PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2023

At the preliminary hearing on 29 November 2023, Employment Judge Hughes considered whether the claimant's claims should be struck out or made subject to a deposit order. The claimant's claim for unauthorised deductions from wages was struck out because the respondent had overpaid his salary in May 2022 and the only deductions made were to recover that overpayment. The tribunal held that this was not an unauthorised deduction for the purposes of s.13 ERA 1996 because s.14 ERA 1996 applied, and that s.18 ERA 1996 did not apply because the claimant was not a retail worker.

The remaining claims were direct race discrimination and direct sex discrimination. The race complaint concerned alleged exclusion from pizza at work on 3 December 2021 and alleged failures to promote in February and March 2022; the sex complaint concerned the alleged failures to promote in February and March 2022. The tribunal identified core disputes of fact which could not be resolved at the preliminary hearing and held that the claims could not be said to have little reasonable prospect of success, still less no reasonable prospect of success. It therefore refused to strike them out and refused to make a deposit order.

The respondent argued that the discrimination claims were out of time under s.123 Equality Act 2010 and relied on Amies v Inner London Education Authority, while the claimant relied on authorities including Anyanwu, Hendricks, Cast, Malik, Rihal and Tree. The tribunal declined to decide the limitation point or whether time should be extended at this stage, saying those jurisdictional issues were best left to the tribunal hearing the final hearing. The reasons note that the final hearing was listed for 5 to 7 February 2024.