Miss M Hyde v Cera Care Limited RECORD OF A PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2025

At a preliminary hearing in Manchester on 29 April 2025, Employment Judge Lloyd considered Miss M Hyde's application to amend her claim. The underlying ET1, presented on 21 May 2024, pleaded disability discrimination, unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal and holiday pay. In February 2025 the claimant sought to add equal pay, sex discrimination and victimisation, relying in part on her case that a male comparator doing the same job was paid £24,000 per annum while she was paid £22,575. She also sought to add further disability discrimination allegations arising from the disciplinary process.

The tribunal applied the amendment principles in Selkent Bus Company Ltd v Moore and focused on the balance of injustice and hardship, the nature of the proposed amendments, limitation, and the timing and manner of the application. It also referred to Vaughan v Modality Partnership, Galilee v The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Prakash v Wolverhampton City Council, Gillett v Bridge 86 Limited, Martin v Microgeneration Wealth Management Systems Ltd and Ladbroke Racing Ltd v Trainer. The tribunal accepted that the claimant had been a litigant in person when she filed her ET1, but noted that she had been assisted by a solicitor from December 2024 and that the new claims could have been raised earlier.

The application to add equal pay, sex discrimination and victimisation was refused. The tribunal found that those claims were new causes of action, were brought substantially out of time, and that it would not be just and equitable to extend time for them. It held that the hardship and injustice to the respondent in allowing those amendments outweighed the hardship to the claimant in refusing them. The tribunal also noted that the original pay complaint had been framed as a complaint about being paid less than newer starters, rather than as a complaint that the difference was because of sex.

The tribunal allowed the claimant to amend her case to add further disability discrimination incidents. It recorded that the respondent did not raise material prejudice to that amendment, and permitted allegations that the disciplinary policy leading to dismissal was a PCP, that the claimant could not respond because of her disability, and that reasonable adjustments would have included allowing a friend at the disciplinary hearing and not holding it on the afternoon of the Christmas party. No remedy was assessed at this hearing.