in person For the v Mr S Miller, solicitor-advocate — 2017

This was a preliminary hearing on the Respondents' strike-out applications. The tribunal relied on EJ Clark's earlier reserved decision of 4 February 2014, which had held that the complaint about the CA2 examination time allocation was about the application of a competence standard. On that basis, and by reference to section 53(7) Equality Act 2010, the tribunal held that complaints tied to the amount of time allowed for CA2, or to whether it was split over two days, were barred by res judicata so far as they were not indirect discrimination claims.

The first application therefore succeeded for the CA2 time-allocation aspects of complaints 4.5, 5.3, 7.23, and the CA2 parts of 4.17.4, 5.14.6, 7.7 and 11.1.13. It did not succeed for 4.6 and 5.15, which were connected to CA2 but were not themselves complaints about time allocation; nor for the indirect discrimination complaints 6.11.1 and 6.11.3; nor for the non-CA2 parts of 4.17.4 and 7.7. The tribunal also held that 11.1.13 survived so far as it alleged indirect discrimination.

The second application, based on the Claimant's email of 19 September 2016, failed. The tribunal accepted that a withdrawal is not effective until communicated to the Tribunal, accepted the Claimant's explanation that he had sent the wrong version of the list of issues, and did not find sufficient basis to treat his conduct as unreasonable or vexatious. The claims the Respondents understood to be not withdrawn, including disability awareness training, a verbal assessment, amendments, and the victimisation claims, were therefore not struck out. No merits findings or monetary remedy were determined at this hearing.