Mr S Superville v Royal Mail Group Limited — 2024

This was a Preliminary Hearing before Employment Judge G Cawthray sitting alone at London South (by video) on 1 and 2 February 2024. The Respondent (Royal Mail Group Limited) had applied to strike out identified parts of the Claimant's victimisation complaint concerning the alleged manual deletion of his job application records on the SuccessFactors system and the conduct of the grievance investigation by Anna Walsh, on the basis that they had no reasonable prospect of success. In the alternative, the Respondent sought a deposit order.

Applying the two stage test under Rule 37(1)(a) and taking the Claimant's case at its highest in line with Balls v Downham Market High School and College, Ukegheson v Haringey LBC, Mechkarov v Citibank NA and Ezsias v North Glamorgan NHS Trust, the Judge concluded that it could not be said the allegations had no reasonable prospect of success, and the strike out application was dismissed. However, the Judge considered that the allegations had little reasonable prospect of success, principally because of the difficulty the Claimant would face establishing the necessary link between the matters complained of and his protected act 3, and because the individuals alleged to be responsible for several of the matters were not clearly identified.

Having considered the Claimant's information about his means to pay and whether it was fair and just to do so, the Judge ordered the Claimant to pay a deposit as a condition of continuing with the relevant allegations, in accordance with a separate deposit order of the same date. No findings on the merits of the underlying victimisation complaint were made.