Mr. P Butler v Thames Water Utilities Limited — 2023

This was a reserved judgment on the claimant’s application to amend his existing claim. The tribunal recorded that the claim already included complaints of direct race discrimination, race harassment and whistleblowing detriment, and that the only matters to be decided at this hearing were whether the claimant could add a victimisation complaint under section 27 Equality Act 2010 and an automatically unfair dismissal complaint under section 103A Employment Rights Act 1996.

On victimisation, the tribunal found that, save for dismissal, the proposed allegations were in substance a relabelling of matters already discernible from the ET1 when read generously in light of the claimant’s status as a litigant in person at the early stages. It considered there to be substantial overlap with the existing whistleblowing detriment allegations, including overlap in witnesses, timeframe and factual issues, and concluded that allowing the amendment would not cause significant additional prejudice to the respondent.

On automatically unfair dismissal, the tribunal accepted that this was a new head of claim because the claimant was still employed when the ET1 was presented. It nevertheless held that the respondent had been on notice since the September 2022 preliminary hearing that the claimant believed he had brought an unfair dismissal complaint, and that the respondent had not demonstrated real prejudice from the amendment. Balancing injustice and hardship, the tribunal permitted both the victimisation amendment, including dismissal as an alleged detriment, and the section 103A dismissal complaint to continue to the final hearing. Any time limit issues were left to be determined at the final hearing.