Mr S Monfared v HCRG Care Services Limited — 2022

On 23 November 2022 the tribunal rejected claim 3300116/2021 under rule 12(1)(d) because the claimant presented the ET1 on 5 January 2021 without a valid ACAS early conciliation certificate. The claimant had contacted ACAS in December 2020, but the certificate was not issued until 30 January 2021. Applying s.18A ETA 1996 and Pryce v BaxterStorey Ltd, the judge held that the later certificate could not cure the defect and that rule 6 could not waive the statutory requirement.

For claim 3306029/2021, the judge reviewed the pleadings, further information and case-management history and concluded that the live claims included race discrimination, harassment, victimisation, protected disclosure, unfair dismissal and age discrimination. The respondent's abuse argument failed because rejection of claim 1 under rule 12 was not a judicial determination of its merits, so there was no Henderson v Henderson basis to strike out claim 2 as an abuse of process.

The only strike-out ordered in claim 2 was limited to victimisation allegations based on acts before 5 January 2021, which the judge held had no reasonable prospect of success because the alleged detriments predated the protected act relied on. The tribunal did not strike out the remaining dismissal-based, race, age or protected disclosure allegations at this hearing, and it made separate case-management directions concerning the race and religion claims. No compensation or other merits remedy was awarded in this judgment.