Ms S Stanley v Sofology Limited — 2021

The claimant presented an unfair dismissal claim on 30 June 2020. She emailed the Tribunal on 29 December 2020 withdrawing the claim, but the email was not copied to the respondent and the Tribunal did not action it, so a judgment dismissing the claim was issued on 18 February 2021. This judgment concerns only the respondent's later application for costs.

The respondent sought £4,999.14 plus VAT, or alternatively £1,592.64, saying the claimant had not complied with case management orders and had not engaged in preparation for the final hearing. The Tribunal applied the three-stage approach from Haydar and the costs provisions in rules 74 to 84 of the 2013 Rules. It heard from the claimant on paper, accepted her explanation that she was working temporary jobs, job-hunting after redundancy, and had found the process stressful, and recorded that she had no savings, monthly outgoings of £1,306.12 including £631 in debt repayments, and a new permanent job paying £23,000 per year, about £1,640 net per month.

The Tribunal found that the claimant had failed to comply with only one case management order, namely the requirement to provide a schedule of loss by 15 December 2020. It held that her conduct up to the withdrawal of the claim was not unreasonable, that the fact she did not copy the respondent into the withdrawal email was a common mistake for a litigant in person, and that the claimant's later failure to read the respondent's letter of 22 January 2021 did not make her conduct unreasonable in all the circumstances. Because the threshold for a costs order was not met, the Tribunal refused the application and did not need to decide whether to make an award or in what amount.