In Person For the v Respondent — 2020

At this open preliminary hearing on 30 July 2020, the tribunal dealt only with whether the First and Third Respondents should be removed, whether any claims should be struck out, and whether a deposit order should be made. The Claimant had presented disability discrimination complaints on 23 December 2019 arising from the rejection of his application to become a Police Officer with the Metropolitan Police Service. He later clarified that he was pursuing direct disability discrimination, not discrimination arising from disability.

The tribunal found that the MPS outsourced recruitment to Shared Services, that Shared Services engaged Optima to carry out the medical assessment component, and that an Optima medical fail automatically led to rejection of the application. Although the contracts used wording that denied any principal-and-agent relationship, the tribunal treated the substance of the arrangements as decisive. Applying the common law concept of agency and the authorities it cited, including Bowstead and Reynolds on Agency, Yearwood, Kemeh, and Unite the Union v Nailard, it held that Optima were agents of Shared Services and subagents of the MPS. The consequence was that all respondents were potentially liable as principals or agents in relation to the Claimant's application, but the tribunal did not decide whether the Claimant had in fact been discriminated against and made no award.