Mr G Rakoczy v Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust — 2019

The judgment concerned the respondent's application to strike out parts of the claim, or alternatively for deposit orders. The claimant, a Consultant Paediatric Surgeon, had been dismissed following NCAS and GMC assessments and an interim restriction on his clinical practice. The tribunal found the ordinary and automatic unfair dismissal complaints had no reasonable prospect of success because the undisputed facts showed the dismissal was plainly within the band of reasonable responses, and the claimant could not point to evidence that a protected disclosure was the reason or principal reason for dismissal.

The tribunal struck out the protected disclosure detriment allegation based on PD1 and D1 because the detriment relied on preceded the alleged disclosure. It declined to strike out the other protected disclosure and detriment allegations, finding that the public interest issue and alleged failures to engage with the claimant's points were fact sensitive and had reasonable prospects of success.

The age discrimination claim was struck out in its entirety. The tribunal held that the claimant's case rested on a misconception: the operative factor in the pleaded case was not his age but his contention that he was Hungarian. Race discrimination allegations LFT1-LFT9 were struck out because the claimant had not identified a basis for concluding that race materially influenced colleagues' concerns about his clinical practice. Allegations LFT10-LFT21, concerning the NCAS referral and capability process, were allowed to proceed because they were fact sensitive, although the tribunal ordered a deposit because they had little reasonable prospect of success.