Claimant v The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and Ms S Wylie — 2023

At the preliminary hearing on 12 October 2023 before Employment Judge Ms A Stewart, the respondent succeeded in striking out much of the second claim on abuse of process grounds. The tribunal found that many of the alleged detriments in paragraph 46 and many of the alleged protected disclosures in paragraph 38 repeated matters already raised, and those parts were struck out under Rule 37(1)(a) and the Henderson v Henderson principle. Some specified detriments and one alleged protected disclosure were left in place, and the claimant's amendment application to add further disclosures and detriments was allowed.

On the protected disclosure issue, the tribunal refused the broader strike-out application under section 43B(1)(b) Employment Rights Act 1996, except for two alleged disclosures that were found to disclose no information: the disclosure dated 23 November 2018 and paragraph 38 xxii dated 6 January 2023. For the remaining disclosures, the tribunal considered that an allegation of breach of contract could amount to a failure to comply with a legal obligation, that communications in a senior medical workplace could convey mutually understood meaning, and that the case was not sufficiently clear to justify strike out without hearing evidence.

The claimant's section 13 wages claim was struck out. The tribunal found no reasonable prospect of success in showing that it had not been reasonably practicable to present the claim within the primary three-month time limit under section 23(4) Employment Rights Act 1996, noting that the deduction complained of was said to have occurred in November 2020 and that any acknowledgment of money owed in January 2023 did not support extending time for the full amount claimed. No monetary award was made in this judgment.