Mr I Shah v Sky Retail Stores Limited — 2022

The judgment followed a preliminary hearing concerning amendment, strike-out and deposit issues. Mr Shah remained employed by Sky Retail Stores Limited. He had originally brought complaints of religion or belief discrimination and whistleblowing detriments, and later sought to amend to add disability discrimination. At the start of the hearing he confirmed that he wished to withdraw the religion or belief discrimination complaint, which the Tribunal recorded as dismissed.

The proposed disability amendment had two parts. The Tribunal refused permission to add a disability-related harassment complaint about comments allegedly made by David Holmes during a January 2020 grievance appeal hearing. Employment Judge Ferguson accepted that the substance of that complaint appeared in further particulars on 24 May 2021, but found it had not been mentioned in the claim form, was raised 16 months after the alleged harassment, and the Claimant had not shown why it would be just and equitable to extend time. The Tribunal also noted possible difficulty for the Respondent in defending the allegation because Mr Holmes had left its employment in January 2021.

The Tribunal allowed permission to amend only in relation to the allegation that the Claimant did not receive welfare-related contact from his line manager until 1 May 2020 while off sick. It treated this as a relabelling of facts pleaded from the outset and permitted it to proceed as a complaint of discrimination arising from disability. The Tribunal noted that, had the complaint been included in the claim form, it would have been in time, and found no significant prejudice to the Respondent because the substance of the allegation had been known since presentation of the claim.

The whistleblowing detriment complaints relied on an alleged protected disclosure about a GDPR breach in March 2019 and alleged detriments between March and May 2019. The Tribunal found that the ordinary time limit expired at the latest in August 2019, while ACAS was not contacted until 24 June 2020 and the claim was not presented until 21 August 2020. Taking the Claimant's case at its highest, the Tribunal found no reasonable prospect of him showing that it was not reasonably practicable to bring the claim in time and within a further reasonable period. The whistleblowing detriment complaints were therefore struck out. No remedy was awarded in this judgment.