Mr O Ezeh v John Lewis plc — 2022

The claimant was employed by the respondent from 13 March 2022 until his summary dismissal on 14 April 2022. He initially brought claims including age, race and disability discrimination, unfair dismissal and whistleblowing, but withdrew all discrimination claims at the preliminary hearing. The respondent applied to strike out the remaining claims or, alternatively, for a deposit order.

The tribunal struck out the ordinary unfair dismissal claim because the claimant had been employed for a little over four weeks and did not meet the two-year qualifying service requirement under s108 ERA. The tribunal therefore held that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the ordinary unfair dismissal claim.

For the whistleblowing claims, the claimant relied on an alleged protected disclosure made between 2015 and 2017 about the handling of employee complaints. The tribunal did not finally decide whether that was a qualifying protected disclosure, but focused on causation. It found there was no reasonable prospect of showing that the decision maker knew of the alleged protected disclosure, or that the alleged disclosure was the reason or principal reason for dismissal or a material factor in continuing the disciplinary hearing in the claimant's absence. The whistleblowing dismissal and detriment claims were therefore struck out.