Mr A Hadi Al Hassany v Somerset NHS Foundation Trust and 1 other — 2022

The Tribunal considered the claimant's application for reconsideration of the judgment dated 23 February 2022. The application was treated as having been made in time under Rule 71, but the Judge refused it because there was no reasonable prospect of showing that it was in the interests of justice to vary or revoke the earlier decision under Rule 72(1).

The claimant argued that the dismissal decision had been made without proper consideration of an email sent at 09:40 on 23 February 2022, in which he developed an argument that the respondent had acted in contempt of court by giving a misleading or inaccurate response to his claims. He also said the Tribunal had not sufficiently considered his attempt to have the response struck out under Rule 37, and that the Tribunal Rules did not prevent a contempt application. The Judge said those matters had already been considered before the original judgment was issued, and that preserving proceedings after the claimant had withdrawn his claim in order to pursue strike-out or contempt issues would not provide a legitimate reason to depart from the usual dismissal following withdrawal, would not accord with the overriding objective in Rule 2, and would undermine finality of litigation. The Judge also stated that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to hear a separate contempt application.

The Judge referred to Trimble v Supertravel Ltd and Fforde v Black to explain that matters already ventilated and argued are for appeal rather than review, and that reconsideration is only available in exceptional cases where something has gone radically wrong with the procedure. The Judge found no denial of natural justice and therefore refused the application for reconsideration.