Mrs E Stamp v OHM Clothing Ltd — 2021

Mrs E Stamp brought claims of unfair dismissal arising out of her dismissal for redundancy and breach of contract in respect of alleged unpaid notice pay. The judgment was a preliminary hearing on 6 December 2021 and did not determine the merits of either claim.

The respondent applied for strike out under rule 37(1)(c) on the basis that the claimant had not complied with the disclosure order made by Employment Judge Halliday on 16 September 2021. The tribunal accepted that disclosure had been late, but found that the delay was relatively short, that it was not clear the claimant was responsible for all of the procedural delay in the case, and that a fair hearing was still possible. It held that strike out would be disproportionate and refused the application.

The respondent also applied for a deposit order. The tribunal was not persuaded at this stage that it could conclude the claims had little reasonable prospect of success, so that application was refused. The separate costs application was dismissed because the tribunal treated the late disclosure as a simple error rather than unreasonable conduct, and it considered the amount of time said to have been wasted on the corrected disclosure list to be overstated.

The tribunal relisted the case for hearing on 13 and 14 June 2022 and varied the case management timetable for disclosure, the bundle and witness statements. No findings were made on whether the dismissal was fair or whether notice pay was owed.