Mr T Staton, Lay representative For v Ms Y Montaz, Senior Litigation Consultant — 2022

At the preliminary hearing on 2 February 2022, the claimant withdrew the automatic unfair dismissal, redundancy, notice pay and holiday pay claims. The tribunal recorded that the redundancy claim had been ticked in error on the ET1, and that the holiday pay claim was withdrawn because the claimant accepted that no holiday pay remained outstanding.

The only issue left for determination was the respondent's application for a deposit order in relation to the ordinary unfair (constructive) dismissal claim. The claimant had been employed as a joiner since 7 June 1980. The evidence before the tribunal included the claimant's self-isolation from 23 to 26 March 2020, furlough from 30 March 2020, correspondence about returning to work in April 2020, later pay disputes, and the claimant's resignation on 1 December 2020 stating that he considered himself constructively dismissed.

Judge Douse applied rule 39 deposit order principles, including the guidance in Hemdan v Ishmail and Jansen Van Rensburg v Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and others. He concluded that he could not say the constructive dismissal claim had little reasonable prospect of success at that stage, because the claimant had provided enough detail about what happened before his resignation to make a final assessment premature. The respondent's application for a deposit order was therefore refused, and the remaining claims were left for a full merits hearing.