A Ali v Allerton Dental Limited AT A PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2021

At a preliminary hearing on 18 October 2021 before Employment Judge Lancaster, the tribunal refused the claimant's application to amend the claim so as to add, in substitution for ordinary unfair dismissal, a complaint of automatically unfair dismissal under sections 104 and/or 104A of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The statutory unfair dismissal claim was then dismissed because the tribunal had no jurisdiction to hear ordinary unfair dismissal.

The tribunal dismissed three wage claims. A claimed underpayment of £32.50 from September 2019 was out of time, and the claimant had no reasonable prospect of showing that it had not been reasonably practicable to present that claim in time. A further claim that the respondent should have paid the applicable national minimum wage rather than the apprenticeship rate for a 19 year old, covering the period from 28 February 2002 to 2 September 2020, was dismissed as out of time and as having no reasonable prospect of success on a proper application of regulation 5(1)(b) of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015.

The tribunal also dismissed the claim for overtime said to arise in weeks when the claimant was not required to attend college for one day and therefore worked all of the contracted 39.5 hour five-day week. It held that this claim had no reasonable prospect of success. The judgment further dismissed the claim of direct age and/or race discrimination in respect of allegation 7, again on the basis that it had no reasonable prospect of success. The tribunal recorded that all other extant claims would continue to final hearing, and that any application for costs in relation to the matters decided at the preliminary hearing was adjourned.