In person For the v Mr Graham Bethel, Managing Director — 2020

The claimant, a security guard, brought claims of unfair dismissal and breach of contract. The hearing on 19 August 2020 was listed to consider strike out and/or a deposit order, and Employment Judge Hyams, sitting alone, concluded that none of the claimant's claims had a reasonable prospect of success and struck them out under rule 37(1)(a) of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013. The judge noted a limitation issue in relation to the unfair dismissal claim, but did not need to determine it because the strike-out conclusion disposed of the case.

The unfair dismissal claim was treated as a constructive dismissal claim under section 95(1)(c) ERA 1996. The tribunal identified the claimant's four factual complaints: the removal of an attendance allowance, an alleged demand that he resign in October 2012, the failure to arrange transport to work on 10 December 2017, and correspondence in March 2019 about his return to work and SIA licence. On the first complaint, the tribunal accepted the respondent's evidence that the attendance allowance had been replaced by a £0.50 hourly pay increase, which for 34 hours a week left the claimant better off by £17 a week, and held that he had affirmed the contractual change by continuing to work on the increased rate.

The tribunal held that the second complaint, about an alleged demand to resign, was too remote because it concerned an event more than six years before the resignation letter of 25 April 2019. The third complaint failed because there was no contractual right to a lift to work and the claimant was paid for the session anyway. The fourth complaint also failed: the tribunal found nothing wrongful in Mr Bethel's letters of 6 and 27 March 2019, and no basis for saying it was a breach of trust and confidence not to help the claimant apply for an SIA licence while he was off sick and not expected to return to work for the foreseeable future.

Having rejected each alleged act individually, the tribunal held it was fanciful to suggest that the matters taken together amounted to a repudiatory breach of contract or a breach of the implied term of trust and confidence. For the same reasons, the breach of contract claims also had no reasonable prospect of success. All claims were therefore struck out, and no remedy was awarded.