In person For the v Respondent — 2021

The claimant presented a sex discrimination claim in July 2019. His narrative allegation was that his male manager was having a romantic relationship with a female colleague and was favouring that colleague, which he said amounted to unacceptable treatment.

At a preliminary hearing on 18 November 2019, the claimant said he did not intend to pursue sex discrimination and wished instead to claim constructive unfair dismissal. A later telephone preliminary hearing on 17 April 2020 recorded that he accepted his pleaded claim was unlikely to succeed and again said he wanted to replace it with unfair dismissal. He later sought to proceed with the sex discrimination claim, but leave to amend to unfair dismissal was refused in a separate order.

At the hearing on 11 June 2021, the Employment Judge discussed the basis of the sex discrimination claim with the claimant. The claimant confirmed that, in his view, the manager treated all staff appallingly and that if the claimant had been a woman, the manager would have treated him in the same way while continuing to favour the colleague with whom he was having a relationship. The Judge explained that this fatally undermined the sex discrimination claim.

The tribunal concluded that the claim of sex discrimination had no reasonable prospects of success and struck it out under rule 37 of the Employment Tribunal Rules 2013. No remedy was awarded.