Mrs F Emmanuel v Nacro Preliminary Hearing — 2020

At a preliminary hearing in Croydon on 7 February 2020, Employment Judge Wright heard the respondent's application to strike out the claimant's claim, or alternatively for a deposit order. The claimant had been legally represented when the ET1 was presented, but was unrepresented at the hearing. The Tribunal did not have the claimant's further particulars and had to work from the pleadings, the respondent's reply, and the position set out at the hearing. It also noted that no application had been made to amend the pleaded claim.

The Tribunal held that there was no extant automatic unfair dismissal claim based on asserting a statutory right, because the claimant had written to the respondent saying that she was withdrawing that claim and it was not included in the further particulars. It then dismissed the public interest disclosure claim. The Tribunal accepted the respondent's point that the grievance relied on as the protected disclosure post-dated dismissal, and held that the PID claim as pleaded had no reasonable prospects of success because the further particulars did not relate to the pleaded claim.

The race discrimination claims were not struck out. The claimant said her race was Black Nigerian African and relied on direct discrimination, harassment, and victimisation. Although the Tribunal noted inconsistencies and poor pleading, it said discrimination cases are fact-sensitive and referred to Madarassy and Anyanwu. It could not say at that stage that the claims had no or little reasonable prospect of success, so no strike out and no deposit order were made. No monetary award was determined at this hearing.