Ms Ladine Barrett v East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust — 2025

The tribunal dismissed the unfair dismissal complaint for want of jurisdiction. It found that the claimant's employment ran from 20 March 2023 to 24 March 2024, so she did not have the two years' continuous service required for ordinary unfair dismissal under section 108 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The tribunal also rejected reliance on section 104 ERA, holding that the claimant's asserted philosophical belief about vaccination and veganism was not one of the relevant statutory rights listed in that provision.

On the respondent's strike out application, the tribunal applied the rule 38 no reasonable prospect of success test with caution appropriate to discrimination claims. It struck out part of the direct religion or belief discrimination case, namely the matters identified at paragraphs 6c, 6d, 6e and 6f of the draft list of issues, because the claimant said the comparator was a white colleague and the tribunal found those allegations, as advanced, were complaints of race discrimination rather than religion or belief discrimination. The judgment records that the race discrimination complaint had already been withdrawn.

The tribunal refused to strike out the remaining direct and indirect religion or belief discrimination claims. It found those remaining matters required explanation and factual determination by witness evidence before any decision could be reached.