Mrs N Hulait v Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust — 2023

Mrs N Hulait presented her claim on 13 July 2022 alleging disability discrimination and arrears of pay against Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust. The case had already included a separate disability-status hearing, and by 30 March 2023 the respondent had conceded that she was disabled by type 1 diabetes, asthma, anxiety and depression, ADHD and bronchiectasis, but not by emotionally unstable personality disorder.

At the open preliminary hearing on 15 June 2023, Employment Judge M Butler applied Selkent Bus Co Ltd v Moore and the Presidential Guidance on General Case Management, balancing the injustice and hardship of allowing or refusing the amendment. The judge noted that the claimant was represented, that the application was late and complicated, and that many of the proposed changes should have been pleaded earlier.

The schedule to the judgment granted typographical and background amendments without opposition, granted some amendments by consent, refused a number of opposed paragraphs as new claims because they related to pre-presentation periods or new factual allegations, and granted other opposed paragraphs where they were treated as post-presentation, sufficiently linked to the original claim, or a relabelling exercise. Paragraph 19, described as arrears of pay, was allowed on the basis that it clearly referred to the claimant being put on half pay.

The judge left time-limit and continuing-act issues for the final hearing, saying there was a reasonably arguable case only. The judgment did not determine liability or award any remedy.