in person For the First v Respondent — 2019

The claimant had previously brought case 3300388/2019 against the GMB and London Borough of Enfield, then withdrew it; Employment Judge Lewis dismissed that claim on 22 August 2019. In this later claim, presented on 9 January 2020, the claimant repeated race and disability discrimination allegations about the 10 October 2018 events and added complaints said to arise after 10 January 2019, together with breach of contract and constructive unfair dismissal.

The tribunal held that the race and disability discrimination complaints concerning events on or before 9 January 2019 were barred by cause of action estoppel because they were the same or substantially the same as the earlier withdrawn claim and could have been brought then. It also struck out the breach of contract complaint against the GMB because a breach of contract claim cannot be brought against a non-employer, and struck out all complaints of defamation as outside tribunal jurisdiction. The tribunal refused the claimant's request to postpone the hearing and rejected his bias concerns, referring to Porter v Magill.

The tribunal held that complaints based on events between 10 January 2019 and termination were not barred because they could not have been included in the first claim. It held that those later race and disability discrimination complaints against both respondents, together with the breach of contract complaint against the second respondent, were not struck out and would be dealt with at the hearing listed for 21 August 2020, subject to unresolved time-limit and ACAS-certificate issues. The dismissal point was rejected because the claimant did not have two years' service, and the judgment noted that the termination date was disputed as 3 or 22 February 2019.