Mr L Ogilvy For the v Respondent — 2020

Mr V Ogunlaja was employed by SBC Systems (UK) Limited from 16 October 2017 to 23 August 2019 as a Senior Consultant - IT Services. After ACAS Early Conciliation, he presented a claim on 13 October 2019. The ET1 ticked claims for a redundancy payment, holiday pay and other payments, and in the "another type of claim" box referred to wrongful dismissal, breach of contract, victimisation, harassment and bullying. The accompanying particulars did not identify any factual basis for an Equality Act 2010 claim, and the tribunal recorded that the Respondent's position was that the Claimant had been dismissed for poor performance.

Employment Judge Stout held that the Claimant did not have the two-year qualifying service needed for unfair dismissal under s 108(1) ERA 1996. The tribunal also said it had no jurisdiction over freestanding harassment and victimisation claims, and that the pleaded case contained no Equality Act claim. The Claimant accepted that he had already been paid in lieu of the one month's notice period due under his contract and in lieu of accrued but outstanding annual leave.

On the breach of contract argument, the tribunal rejected the submission that the contract required a performance review before dismissal. It found nothing in the contract linking any performance-review process to a limitation on the Respondent's right to terminate, and said an implied-term argument based on trust and confidence had no prospect of success, referring to Johnson v Unisys [2001] UKHL 13. It therefore held that no pleaded claim within its jurisdiction had any reasonable prospect of success and struck the claim out in its entirety under Rule 37(1)(a). The Respondent's costs application for Counsel's brief fee of ?1,000 plus VAT was dismissed because, although the claim had no reasonable prospect of success, the tribunal did not find unreasonable conduct by the Claimant in pursuing it to the hearing.