Claimant v Lidl Great Britain Ltd/Lidl UK GmbH — 2020

This was a remote preliminary hearing on the papers before Employment Judge Cheetham QC on 2 and 3 September 2020. The tribunal held that the claimant's philosophical belief in Stoicism fell within s.10 Equality Act 2010. Applying the Grainger criteria and the approach in Gray v Mulberry, it found the belief genuinely held, not merely an opinion, concerning a weighty and substantial aspect of human life, and sufficiently cogent and coherent. It also held that the belief was worthy of respect in a democratic society, even though the claimant said he was not a consequentialist and that the possibility of causing offence would not stop him saying or doing something.

The tribunal also held that the claimant was disabled for Equality Act purposes by reason of dyslexia. It accepted his evidence about slower reading and writing, frequent errors and error blindness, difficulty with sequential processing, and word substitutions. The respondent's point that the claimant had produced fluent written submissions and gave clear oral evidence was not enough to displace his account of the substantial and long-term adverse effect of the condition.

The claimant's application to strike out the response was dismissed as disproportionate. On the respondent's application to strike out or seek deposit orders, the direct disability discrimination complaint was struck out, as was one direct religion or belief allegation about requiring people to behave in a proscribed emotional way during disciplinary proceedings. Deposit orders were made in relation to the s.15 disability complaint, the remaining direct and indirect religion or belief complaints, and the tribunal did not strike out the equal pay claim.

On the equal pay issue, the tribunal compared the claimant with Laura Johnson and Sarah Catterick, both of whom had degrees and about nine years' relevant experience. It noted the claimant's HND in Natural Sciences and his own account of relevant experience, but said it could not conclude at this stage that the claim had no or little reasonable prospect of success. No substantive liability or remedy decision was made on the deposit-ordered claims at this hearing.