Ms B Lock v The Chiltern Brewery Company Limited — 2025

The tribunal refused the claimant's application for reconsideration of the judgment sent to the parties on 8 March 2025. It held, under rule 70(2) of the Employment Tribunal Rules 2024, that it was not necessary in the interests of justice to alter that judgment.

In dealing with the application, the tribunal recorded that the earlier decision had been made under rule 47 because the claimant failed to attend. It noted that enquiries had been made by email, that no contact telephone number was on the ET1 or on the tribunal system, and that the claimant did not reply to the email sent to ask whether she was attending or to explain her absence.

The tribunal also noted that the claimant had previously asked for the hearing to be by telephone, but the postponement notice sent on 13 November 2024 stated that the relisted hearing would proceed by video. It found that the claimant made no request in the period before 18 February 2025 for a telephone number to be provided so she could join by phone. The tribunal rejected the claimant's reliance on rule 37(2), saying that was not the basis of the decision under challenge, and it accepted the respondent counsel's account of contact between the respondent's solicitor and the claimant.