Miss S McLaren v Framework Housing Association and 2 others — 2025

At the preliminary hearing on 4 February 2025, Employment Judge M Butler, sitting alone, dealt with the claimant’s application to amend, the disability issue, strike out, and case management matters. The claimant confirmed that the purported amendment did not add any new claims and that she was not pursuing joinder of Ms Manning as a fourth respondent, so there was no amendment application to determine.

On disability, the tribunal considered the claimant’s asserted conditions and the medical material, including GP records and a redacted report. It was concerned by the redactions in the GP records and found that the records referred only to work-related stress. Applying the approach in Herry v Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, the tribunal held that stress was not a clinical impairment and found that the claimant was not disabled at the material time for the purposes of s.6 EqA 2010.

The direct race discrimination claim was withdrawn by the claimant. The direct sex discrimination claim was struck out under Rule 38 of the Tribunal Rules of Procedure 2024. The tribunal found there was no identifiable causal link between the treatment complained of and the claimant’s sex, and it also took into account the manner in which the proceedings had been conducted, including concerns about the redaction of medical records. The tribunal referred to Ezsias v North Glamorgan NHS Trust when explaining that strike out of discrimination claims is reserved for the clearest cases, but concluded that this claim met that threshold.