Mr A Williams v Conwy County Borough Council — 2023

This preliminary hearing on 14 September 2023 concerned the Claimant's application to strike out the Respondent's response under rule 37 of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013. The application focused on alleged unreasonable conduct and non-compliance with orders made by Judge McLeese on 19 January 2023 concerning the List of Issues. The Claimant also raised additional disclosure concerns during the hearing, although those were not the basis of the strike-out application as presented.

Applying the guidance in James v Blockbuster Entertainment Ltd and Bolch v Chipman, the Tribunal found that the Respondent had been guilty of unreasonable conduct in relation to the List of Issues. The Judge accepted that there had been persistent delay over a period of more than six months and that several reminders and promises had been made. However, the Judge was not satisfied that there had been deliberate disregard of the directions, attributing the problem in part to the number of locum solicitors involved.

The Tribunal held that the failures did not make a fair trial impossible. The substance of the List of Issues had been broadly known since at least February 2021, and the Respondent's late revisions broadly echoed the earlier draft. The Judge also considered that the disclosure issues, even if they caused practical difficulty, were a matter for case management and did not justify strike-out on this application.

The application was therefore refused because a fair, albeit re-scheduled, hearing remained possible and strike-out would not be proportionate. No substantive liability issues were determined in this decision.