Mr A Gillott v Sheffield Hallam University UPON APPLICATION made by letter dated 25 March 2020 to reconsider the — 2020

This was a reconsideration judgment, decided without a hearing, following the claimant’s letter dated 25 March 2020 seeking reconsideration of the judgment of 19 March 2020. The tribunal was dealing with an earlier refusal to allow an amendment to the claim. The judge recorded that the proposed amendment related to a complaint under Reg 5(1)(a) of the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 concerning two clauses in the claimant’s contract said to be less favourable than the equivalent clauses for full-time workers.

The tribunal held that the claim form did not include that contractual complaint and that no fair-minded reader of the claim form could have understood it to do so. The judge said the matter the claimant was in fact pursuing was a complaint about less favourable treatment by way of detriments, and that this was properly treated as a claim under the second limb of Reg 5(1), even if it had not been labelled in those terms. The judge said the hearing had proceeded on that basis and that the information needed to decide the amendment application had been sought and addressed.

On reconsideration, the tribunal held that the application had no reasonable prospect of success and dismissed it under Rule 72(1) of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013. The judge also noted that the claimant’s representative had been given a full opportunity to present the case, that there had been no confusion or lack of clarity about what was being done, and that the judge did not accept the submission that permission to amend had not been required.