Case 1800771/2021 · Employment Tribunal
Ms C Israel v [1] Capita Customer Management Ltd [2] Department for Work and Pensions — 2022
- Case reference
- 1800771/2021
- Decision date
- 23 February 2022
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Ms C Israel
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningAt the preliminary hearing on 31 January 2022, Employment Judge D N Jones struck out the claims against the second respondent, Department for Work and Pensions. The tribunal held that the claimant was employed by Capita Customer Management Ltd, that DWP was only Capita's client, and that the unfair dismissal complaint against DWP could not succeed. It also held that the holiday pay claim failed because there was no contract between the claimant and DWP for personal work, and that the complaint about racially abusive calls from DWP customers was, in substance, a third-party harassment complaint for which there was no residual claim.
The tribunal also rejected the claimant's stand-alone duty of care and human rights challenges, saying the Employment Tribunal had no inherent jurisdiction to determine them. It found no basis on which to treat DWP as jointly liable or as the claimant's employer/worker counterpart under the Equality Act. The section 149 EqA public sector equality duty was noted but held not to be enforceable in the Employment Tribunal.
Against the first respondent, the age, religion or belief, disability and sex discrimination complaints were struck out as pleaded because the ET1 contained only a list of protected characteristics with no usable factual detail. The tribunal said the later amendment material was new rather than clarifying the pleaded case, and refused those amendments. No deposit order or monetary award was made.
Claims and outcomes
8 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other | Free-standing duty of care and human rights complaints against the second respondent; the tribunal said the Employment Tribunal had no inherent jurisdiction to determine them. | Struck out | — | — |
| Harassment | Complaint based on alleged racially abusive calls from DWP customers; struck out because the tribunal treated it as third-party harassment, with no residual claim available under the EqA. | Struck out | Race | — |
| Unfair dismissal | Claim against the second respondent failed because DWP was a client, not the claimant's employer. | Struck out | — | — |
| Holiday pay | Claim against the second respondent failed because there was no contract between the claimant and DWP for personal work and she was not a worker for DWP. | Struck out | — | — |
| Age discrimination | Against the first respondent, the ET1 gave only a bare reference to age discrimination with no usable factual detail; amendment material was new and was refused. | Struck out | Age | — |
| Religion or belief discrimination | Against the first respondent, the ET1 gave only a bare reference to religion or belief discrimination with no usable factual detail; amendment material was new and was refused. | Struck out |
Legal tests applied
10 references- rule 37 no reasonable prospect of success
- rule 39 little reasonable prospect / deposit
- Mechkarov strike-out principles
- Anyanwu clear-case principle
- s.230 ERA employee definition
- reg 2 WTR worker definition
- s.83 EqA employee definition
- Unite the Union v Nailard third-party harassment
- Chandok v Tirkey ET1 pleading rule
- Ministry of Defence v Kemeh joint liability
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
- Open official judgment 1 PDF on gov.uk
- Open official judgment 2 PDF on gov.uk
- Open official judgment 3 PDF on gov.uk
- Open official judgment 4 PDF on gov.uk
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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