Miss Z Simmonds-Plummer v London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham — 2020

The claimant applied for reconsideration of a reserved judgment that had struck out her claims in their entirety following a preliminary hearing which she did not attend. The reconsideration application focused on the strike-out of her sex discrimination and race discrimination claims. Employment Judge Burns considered the application without a hearing and decided the original judgment should not be varied or revoked.

In the original judgment, the tribunal had interpreted the pleaded discrimination paragraph as raising two complaints: harassment under section 26 Equality Act 2010 related to sex and/or race, and victimisation under section 27 Equality Act 2010 based on alleged protected acts. The tribunal had struck out those complaints because they depended on the claimant establishing that she was summarily dismissed, whereas taking her claim at its highest the tribunal considered it likely that the tribunal would find she was constructively dismissed rather than summarily dismissed.

On reconsideration, the tribunal rejected the argument that it had failed to take account of post-termination Equality Act claims. It found that the strike-out was based instead on the pleaded detriment being actual summary dismissal, not the carrying out of a post-termination disciplinary process or a finding that she would have been summarily dismissed had she remained employed. The tribunal also stated that, in any event, the claimant would have little prospect of establishing that the respondent's actions were because of gender, race and/or protected acts, given the respondent's apparent explanation for continuing the disciplinary process in relation to alleged electoral fraud.