Ms A House v Synter Group Limited — 2022

Ms A House applied on 16 February 2022 for reconsideration of the judgment sent on 3 February 2022. She said she was a litigant in person with serious health conditions, including a learning disability/ADHD, that she had experienced a serious mental health crisis in 2020 and 2021, and that reasonable adjustments were not provided at the hearing or considered under the Equal Treatment Bench Book. Employment Judge Emery refused the application.

The judge accepted that the claimant's health conditions had a substantial impact on her ability to progress the claim and that, as a litigant in person for most of the proceedings, she was further disadvantaged. However, the judge also noted that she had been able to write to the Tribunal and provide some medical evidence, that the case had been issued in March 2020 with no progress by December 2021, and that the hearing could not then proceed because further procedural steps would have been required. The judge concluded that the failure to progress the case was not satisfactorily explained by the medical evidence, that the Equal Treatment Bench Book did not require open-ended deadlines or a different legal test, and that the balance of access to justice, case management, and the risk that a fair trial might no longer be possible supported refusal of reconsideration.