Mr F Murray v North West Boroughs Health Care NHS Foundation Trust and 3 others — 2017

This was a reserved preliminary-hearing judgment on amendment and joinder, not a merits decision. The tribunal allowed the remainder of the September amendment application, noted that two parts of it were no longer pursued, and then applied Selkent to the October and November amendment requests. It accepted that the claimant could pursue Ms Nakamuli's 9 November 2015 remark that he had memory problems as a direct discrimination-by-perception point without a formal amendment, and it treated the details of Allegation 12 about the counselling appointment and the two meetings on 16 June 2017 as further particulars rather than a new claim.

The tribunal refused the new Allegation 2 task-sheet complaint and the new Allegation 5 kitchen complaint. In both instances it held that the amendment would introduce a substantially new factual enquiry and that, applying the time-limit factors, it would not be just and equitable to extend time. It also allowed the claimant to join Ms Mitchell, Ms Critchley and Ms Nakamuli as individual respondents, but refused joinder of Mr Roscoe and Ms Sheard. The judge recorded that Allegation 5's age and marital-status points were already available, but only the additional sex discrimination formulation required a ruling.

On whistleblowing, the tribunal held that the claim form did not clearly raise a section 47B ERA complaint based on the alleged 25 May 2016 disclosure about a health-and-safety issue, so an amendment was required and was refused as out of time. It also refused the later whistleblowing amendments based on alleged disclosures on 25 November 2016 and 5 June 2017, including the alleged face-to-face meeting, rearranged meetings and omission from the grievance outcome. The November amendment application was allowed only to the extent that Allegations 6, 7 and 8 could also be advanced as direct discrimination because of disability.