Mr O Awodele, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2021

This was a CVP preliminary hearing on 19 March 2021, not a merits judgment. The tribunal was dealing with the respondent's applications to strike out the claimant's unfair dismissal, disability discrimination and notice pay claims, alternatively to make deposit orders or an unless order. The claimant had worked for Maximus UK Services Ltd as a Disability Assessor from 16 April 2019 to 2 September 2019. At the earlier case management hearing on 25 June 2020, the issues included disability status, direct discrimination, discrimination arising from disability, reasonable adjustments and time limits. By the time of this hearing, counsel for the claimant clarified that the s.15 claim was limited to dismissal and failure to achieve required standards, and that the reasonable-adjustments case concerned the training programme and four-stage approval process.

The tribunal found there had been delay in providing the further particulars ordered in June 2020, and that the claimant's written communications had not provided the required clarification. It said that this amounted to unreasonable conduct in the way the proceedings had been conducted. However, applying Rule 37 and the overriding objective, the tribunal decided it would not be appropriate to strike out the claims. It accepted that the claims were now capable of being understood following clarification and noted that the final hearing dates could remain in place.

The tribunal also refused to make a deposit order, stating that on the information then available it could not be satisfied that the claims had little reasonable prospect of success. The wasted costs application was not dealt with because the claimant's solicitor had not been given the notice required by Rule 82 for such an application. The judgment records that any costs application could be considered later at the full merits hearing if the respondent continued to pursue it.