Mr J Edward v The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust — 2019

This was an open preliminary hearing before Employment Judge Sharma on 8 February 2019. The claimant asked for a postponement, but the tribunal refused it because the hearing had already been fixed and the respondent's applications had been on notice. The claimant also sought to add victimisation, but that had already been dealt with by Employment Judge Grewal at the earlier preliminary hearing and was not reopened.

The respondent applied to strike out the remaining age discrimination, race discrimination and harassment claims under Rule 37, or alternatively for a deposit order under Rule 39, on the basis that the claims had no or little reasonable prospect of success. Its case included an argument that there were no pleadings on age discrimination, that the race case largely depended on an alleged racially motivated comment by Kerri Johnson Walker, and that some claims were out of time. The tribunal refused strike-out relief, relying on Robertson v Bexley Community Centre and saying it could not decide that there was no reasonable prospect of success without hearing the evidence. It also held that any time-limit problem could be addressed on a just and equitable basis, applying section 123(2)(a) of the Equality Act 2010 and the British Coal v Keeble checklist.

The alternative deposit application was also refused. The tribunal accepted the claimant's evidence that he had £2 in his current account and £6 in savings, and said it was not in the interests of justice to make such an order. The effect of the ruling was that the remaining claims were allowed to proceed to the listed final hearing in June 2019, with no merits findings or compensation awarded at this stage.