Claimant v Stonewall Equality Ltd and others — 2022

This reserved judgment concerned two costs applications following the substantive hearing of the case, which had run for 25 days in May 2022. The tribunal noted the earlier merits outcome for context: the claim against Stonewall was dismissed, the claimant succeeded against Garden Court on two of five alleged detriments and was awarded £22,000 for injury to feelings, and claims about the remaining detriments and indirect discrimination were dismissed.

Applying rule 76 of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013, together with the guidance in Dyer, McPherson, Barnsley MBC v Yerrakalva, Radia and Opalkova, the tribunal concluded that Garden Court's conduct of the trial bundle amounted to unreasonable conduct. It found repeated problems with the bundle process, including mismatched indexes and PDFs, missing and unindexed material, inconsistent naming conventions, late disclosure, and a failure to adopt constructive solutions such as using a shared drive or allowing the claimant to see the bundle as it stood.

The tribunal rejected the respondents' application for costs on detriments one and three. It held that the claimant's detriment one case was not unreasonable or hopeless from the outset, because her belief that the fall in income was connected to the disputed events was genuine and relevant material came late; detriment three was also not speculative, because there was documentary evidence of contact between Ms Brewer and complainants. The tribunal considered detailed assessment disproportionate and instead made a summary assessment, ordering the second and third respondents to pay the claimant £20,000 in costs.