Miss R Olyazadeh v Newcastle University — 2023

The hearing dealt with two ET1s brought by Miss R Olyazadeh against Newcastle University. At the hearing the claimant withdrew the first claim's Employment Rights Act complaints of unfair dismissal, notice pay and redundancy payment, and she also withdrew the pregnancy and maternity discrimination complaint. The earlier race discrimination complaint had already been dismissed on withdrawal. The remaining first-claim complaints were direct sex discrimination and victimisation, and the tribunal refused the respondent's strike-out application under Rule 37, making deposit orders under Rule 39 instead.

On the effective date of termination, the tribunal found that the claimant's employment ended on 18 April 2023. It accepted that the claimant had been discussing leaving from November 2022, stopped substantive work on 2 March 2023, returned university property on 13 April, and did not reply to Ms Hugall's email of 18 April stating that silence would be treated as confirmation of resignation with effect from that date. The later processing of the P45 on 23 May and the payment of £331.89 on 31 May were treated as administrative consequences and did not alter the EDT.

Because the EDT was 18 April 2023, the primary time limit for the second claim expired on 17 July 2023. The tribunal found that the claimant did not start Acas early conciliation for that claim until 28 August 2023 and that it was reasonably practicable for her to have brought the claim in time. It therefore dismissed the second claim's unfair dismissal and notice pay complaints as out of time and for want of jurisdiction.

In deciding strike out, the tribunal referred to the cautious approach in discrimination cases and cited Madarassy v Nomura International, Blockbuster Entertainment Ltd v James, N Glamorgan NHS Trust v Ezsias, Mechkarov v Citibank, Cox v Adecco and Ahir v British Airways. It considered the sex discrimination case weak because the claimant's account of a discriminatory view about working mothers sat uneasily with her own evidence that the earlier part-time discussion was driven by funding issues, while her 2023 request was to take up a second job that the respondent said its contract arrangements did not permit without approval. The victimisation complaint was also weak because the protected act relied on was an email of 31 January 2023, which post-dated most of the alleged detriments; the only later matters identified were a Fit Note request and a researcher meeting, which had not previously been pleaded. The tribunal held that neither claim met the high threshold for strike out, but that both had little reasonable prospect of success, so it ordered deposits rather than dismissing them. The judgment does not record any tribunal monetary award.