1. Miss Rodica Ionela Buftea 2. Miss Aimee Gardner 3. Miss Stanislava Miteva 4. Miss Estelle Chretien v Arman Zabair and 1 other — 2022

By case management orders dated 21 April 2022, the Tribunal required Miss Gardner to say whether she intended to continue claims in both the East London and West Midlands regions or to withdraw the East London claims. In her 13 May 2022 response, she said the other three claimants had included her on their claim forms without her knowledge, that she worked at the Respondent’s head office in the West Midlands rather than at Sweet in Ilford, that she intended to proceed against The Food Group rather than Arman Zabair, and that she did not seek to advance an unfair dismissal claim.

The Tribunal found that Miss Gardner had a separate West Midlands claim which she had lodged herself, and that the East London claims were brought without her consent. It held that her East London claims were materially different from the other claimants’ claims because she had a different role, worked at a different location, and the pleaded facts in the other claims did not apply to her. The Tribunal also noted that some of the East London claims were not claims she wanted to bring.

Applying rule 9 of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure, the Tribunal concluded that it was not reasonable for her claims to have been brought on the same claim form. It held that rule 37 and the abuse of process jurisdiction applied because the East London claims duplicated her West Midlands claim without good reason. The Tribunal did not find the claim form invalid as a whole, but struck out all of Miss Gardner’s East London claims, namely case numbers 3205938/2021, 3205737/2021 and 3206100/2021, and confirmed that nothing prevented her from pursuing the West Midlands claim. The other three claimants’ claims were allowed to proceed, with time extended for compliance with the earlier case management order.