Case 2200378/2022 · Employment Tribunal
Mr M Diop v Knightsbridge Residents Management Company Limited and 2 others — 2022
- Case reference
- 2200378/2022
- Decision date
- 22 July 2022
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Palca
- Venue
- London Central
Parties
4 namedKey findings
Tribunal's reasoningAt the open preliminary hearing on 8 August 2022, Employment Judge Palca considered strike-out and case management applications in a claim brought by Mr M Diop, who said he had worked as a security officer through CN Security Limited from December 2021 and had been placed at Knightsbridge Residents Management Company Limited on 17 December 2021 and at London Portman Hotels Ltd t/a NOBU Hotel on 3 and 4 January 2022. The claimant said the dispute arose from being withdrawn from those posts over his shoes and whether he should be clean-shaven, and later from a dispute with a colleague. He clarified that his race discrimination claims were brought against all respondents, and that the religion/belief discrimination claim was against the first respondent only.
On the early conciliation point, the tribunal accepted that the claimant had named the wrong related company in both the ACAS process and the ET1, but held that this was a minor error for the purposes of rule 12(2A) read with the overriding objective. The claimant was unrepresented, had not been given a contract or payslip, the two companies had the same address, and the second respondent suffered no prejudice. The second respondent's application to strike out on that basis therefore failed.
The tribunal struck out the unfair dismissal claims. It held that the claimant was not employed by the first or third respondents, so unfair dismissal could not be brought against them, and that his employment with the second respondent had begun in December 2021, meaning he had not met the two-year qualifying period under s.108(3) ERA 1996 and had identified no applicable exception. By contrast, the tribunal refused to strike out the race and religion/belief discrimination claims. It said discrimination cases are fact-sensitive and should only be struck out in the most obvious cases, and that although there were difficulties and the claimant might struggle to prove a prima facie case, it could not say at this stage that success was impossible.
Claims and outcomes
3 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal | Struck out on jurisdictional grounds. The tribunal held that the first and third respondents were not the claimant's employers, and that the second respondent claim also failed because the claimant had not shown two years' service or any exception to the qualifying period. | Struck out | — | — |
| Race discrimination | Strike-out application under Rule 37(1)(a) refused. The tribunal said the race discrimination claims against all respondents were fact-sensitive and could not at this stage be said to have no reasonable prospect of success. | Other | Race | — |
| Religion or belief discrimination | Strike-out application under Rule 37(1)(a) refused as against the first respondent only. The tribunal held that the religion/belief claim could not at this stage be said to have no reasonable prospect of success. | Other | Religion or belief | — |
Legal tests applied
11 references- s.18A Employment Tribunals Act 1996
- Rule 12(1)(f) ET Rules
- Rule 12(2A) ET Rules
- s.108(3) Employment Rights Act 1996
- Rule 37(1)(a) ET Rules
- Rule 37(1)(d) ET Rules
- Rule 39 ET Rules
- Giny v SNATransport Ltd
- Chard v Trowbridge Office Cleaning Services Ltd
- Stiopu v Loughran
- Madarassy v Nomura International plc
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.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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