Mrs. N Osagiobare v Anchor Hanover Group — 2023

This was a preliminary hearing dealing with amendment, strike out and deposit order applications rather than final liability or remedy. The tribunal permitted the Claimant to amend her claim to advance the allegations as clarified in Schedule One. The Claimant had less than two years' service and advanced automatic unfair dismissal complaints under sections 100 and 103A ERA 1996, direct race discrimination, victimisation, and breach of contract/wrongful dismissal complaints.

The tribunal declined, by narrow margins in several places, to strike out most of the complaints, but found that the section 100 health and safety dismissal complaint, the section 103A protected disclosure dismissal complaint, the direct race discrimination allegations, and the victimisation allegations each had little reasonable prospect of success. Deposit orders of £10 per complaint were made. The tribunal identified difficulties including the Claimant's ability to show that the alleged matters met the relevant statutory tests and causation issues, including that some alleged recipients were not decision-makers and that another employee was also dismissed.

The notice pay complaint was allowed to proceed because the Respondent would need to prove at a full hearing that it was entitled to dismiss without notice for gross misconduct. The separate breach of contract complaint about training was struck out because the tribunal found that the contractual clause relied on placed obligations on the Claimant to undertake training required by the Respondent, rather than imposing an enforceable obligation on the Respondent to provide training in the way alleged.