Ms M Boatswain-Tomkin v Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing Limited — 2020

At a preliminary hearing in Leeds on 24 September 2020, Employment Judge Cox considered the respondent's application to strike out the claim. By that stage the remaining claims were unfair dismissal and direct race discrimination by dismissal only. The tribunal recorded that the claim had originally been presented on 14 February 2020 in the name of AP rather than Ms M Boatswain-Tomkin, even though the attached particulars named Ms Boatswain-Tomkin and the early conciliation certificate was in her name.

The tribunal held that the original claim could not retrospectively be treated as a claim by Ms Boatswain-Tomkin and should have been rejected because the name on the claim form did not match the name on the early conciliation certificate. It further held that the later email of 2 March 2020, which attached a claim form in Ms Boatswain-Tomkin's own name, could not validly amend the earlier claim because there was then no existing claim by her capable of amendment. The earlier direction treating that email as correcting a defect was therefore set aside under Rule 29.

In reaching that conclusion the tribunal referred to the mandatory presentation rules and jurisdictional authorities, including Rules 8, 10, 12 and 29, Serco Ltd v Wells, and E.ON Control Solutions Limited v Caspall. The claim was struck out, and the tribunal made no decision on limitation or on whether the remaining claims had little or no reasonable prospect of success. No remedy was awarded.