Miss J Beresford v Citizens Advice Derbyshire Districts — 2020

After a telephone preliminary hearing on 19 March 2020, Employment Judge Camp dealt with the case on the papers and struck out the entire claim under rule 37 for having no reasonable prospects of success. The tribunal relied in particular on Anyanwu v Southbank Student Union, North Glamorgan NHS Trust v Ezcias, and X v Mid Sussex Citizens Advice Bureau, and held that a volunteer could not pursue these tribunal claims because she was neither in employment nor an applicant for employment.

The claimant confirmed that she was not bringing disability or marriage and civil partnership claims, said that she wanted to pursue unfair dismissal, and advanced discrimination allegations based on age, race, and religion or belief, together with victimisation. The tribunal understood the discrimination complaints to arise from being told not to return to training on or around 16 September 2019.

The unfair dismissal claim failed because the claimant had never been the respondent's employee and had not accrued the two years' qualifying service referred to in section 108 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The age discrimination complaint was the most coherent of the discrimination claims, but the tribunal still considered it to have little reasonable prospect of success; the race and religion or belief claims were weaker because the claimant did not identify the relevant protected characteristics or a factual basis for causation. The victimisation allegation was based on a previous approach to a different Citizens Advice office and alleged detriments including food in the training room, being told not to return to training, lack of explanation, and non-reimbursement of travel expenses, but the tribunal found no viable link to a protected act. The judge also noted that expenses could not be claimed as wages and that volunteers could not bring breach of contract or unauthorised deductions claims.