Mr A Minin v Ringway Hounslow Highways Limited — 2022

At a preliminary hearing on 5 September 2022 before Employment Judge Corrigan, the tribunal considered the claimant's age discrimination and age-related harassment complaints in case numbers 2305031/2020 and 2303276/2021. The claimant remained employed as a street cleaner, having transferred to the respondent under TUPE in 2013. The issues covered incidents said to have happened in 2014 to 2017, a series of matters in 2020, and a later allegation that the respondent had defamed him in its grounds of resistance and then failed to deal with his grievance.

The tribunal held that the allegations from 2014 and 2015 were many years out of time. It found that the claimant had known about the matters at the time, had raised different reasons for what was happening in contemporaneous correspondence, and had made a conscious decision not to bring a tribunal claim. It refused to extend time on just and equitable grounds, including because the claimant had chosen not to pursue litigation earlier and the respondent would be prejudiced by the passage of time.

On the substantive merits, the tribunal found no reasonable prospect of proving that any of the treatment was because of age. It accepted the respondent's case that the toilet and drinking-water allegations were not continuing instructions into 2020: the drinking-water allegation was treated as a one-off oral instruction in September 2015, and the evidence suggested any different treatment had ended long before the later claims. The tribunal also regarded the claimant's age case as speculative and illogical, and said the statistics relied on by the respondent did not support it. In claim 2, it held that the allegation arising from a mistake in the respondent's tribunal papers and the grievance outcome was not less favourable treatment or harassment and was covered by privilege. It struck out all of the claims as having no reasonable prospects of success.