Marion Cristea v Accolade UK Ltd — 2021

The tribunal dismissed the unfair dismissal claim for want of jurisdiction. It recorded that the claimant had been engaged from 15 May 2018 to 14 July 2019, so he did not have the two years' service required for unfair dismissal, and he did not rely on any exception to that requirement.

The redundancy payment claim was withdrawn because the claimant did not say that he had been made redundant. The claim for deduction from wages was also withdrawn after discussion, once he accepted that he had been paid for the work he had actually done and identified only a possible £6 Oyster card expense. The notice pay claim was withdrawn as well; the claimant said he had stopped accepting shifts because of constructive dismissal.

On race discrimination, the tribunal first considered strike-out principles under Rule 37 and referred to Malik v Birmingham City Council & Anor and the Mechkarov approach, noting that discrimination claims should be struck out only in the clearest cases. The claimant initially said he was withdrawing the race claim, then said he had been confused, and the tribunal reversed its initial withdrawal-based dismissal. It nevertheless dismissed the claim because it could not identify any causative link between race and the reduction in hours or shifts: the claimant accepted that Calvin Klein had asked for his removal, that London Zoo was an ad hoc placement filling gaps, and that there was no evidence that the respondent intended to give him fewer shifts because he was not black.

The disability discrimination claim was dismissed because the claimant said the impairment was anxiety, depression and PTSD, but the tribunal held that the alleged unfair treatment and resulting financial difficulty were not said to arise from an existing disability. It concluded that being treated unfairly while well does not become disability discrimination because mental health problems later result from that treatment. All of the claimant's claims were dismissed.