Mr Dragan Malic v JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. – London Branch and 3 others — 2022

At the preliminary hearing on 11 January 2022, Employment Judge Jones considered the respondents' applications to strike out or dismiss the claimant's allegations, and an application to strike out the whole case for alleged unreasonable conduct. The claimant was in person; the first respondent was represented for all respondents. The tribunal accepted that the claimant had inserted a verse or poem into documents disclosed by the respondent and sent that version to the tribunal, but held that the incident was isolated and that a fair trial remained possible, so the strike-out application based on unreasonable conduct was refused. The tribunal relied on Blockbuster Entertainment Ltd v James and Bolch v Chipman when deciding that strike-out was not proportionate.

The tribunal held that the historic direct sexual orientation discrimination and harassment allegations dating from 2016 to 2018 were out of time. It found that the allegations against Mr Enfield, Mr Mikhailov and Mr Lazaridis were historical, that there was no continuing act linking them to the later grievance appeal process, and that the claimant had not given a satisfactory explanation for waiting until 21 December 2020 to issue proceedings. Applying the just and equitable extension of time principles, and referring to Outokumpu Stainless Steel Ltd v Law and Ramathakrishnan v Pizza Express (Restaurants) Ltd, the tribunal refused to extend time. The historic sexual orientation complaints were therefore dismissed, and the second to fourth respondents were struck out and removed as parties.

The tribunal also dealt with the claimant's victimisation complaint. It held that no protected act had been identified in the ET1 or in the meetings and grievance material the claimant relied on, and that comments about a change in professional treatment and the grievance discussions were not enough to amount to a protected act. The victimisation complaint was described as misconceived, the application to amend to add it was refused, and the claim was struck out.

One direct sexual orientation discrimination complaint remained, namely the allegation that Mr Charlwood's grievance appeal outcome of 6 October 2020 was taken because of the claimant's actual or perceived sexual orientation. The tribunal did not determine that allegation on the merits at this hearing. Instead, it found the complaint had little reasonable prospects of success and ordered the claimant to pay a £200 deposit if he wished to continue with it. The tribunal noted the claimant's evidence that he had been employed on £55,000 per year and that he had savings in the thousands when assessing the deposit amount.