In person For the v Respondent — 2018

On 7 January 2019 Employment Judge Hyams, sitting alone at Watford, heard the first to fifth respondents' application to strike out the claimant's age and disability discrimination claims under rule 37 of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013, or alternatively for deposit orders under rule 39. The judge applied the approach in Three Rivers District Council v Bank of England (No 3), Swain v Hillman and Ahir v British Airways plc, treating strike-out as appropriate only where there was no reasonable prospect of success and noting the need to avoid a mini-trial on incomplete evidence.

The age discrimination claim was said to arise from Ms Zaman's surprise at the claimant being 70 rather than 60, and from an alleged influence by Ms Zaman on Ms Desor because of a shared Indian Asian cultural background. The tribunal held that the claim depended on an inference from that shared background and on a hypothetical comparator, without any direct evidence that Ms Desor held ageist attitudes or treated older people less favourably because of age. It concluded that the claim was tenuous and had no reasonable prospect of success, so it was struck out.

The disability discrimination claim was pleaded on the basis that the claimant was treated less favourably because of her husband's disability, through his aggression towards her which she said arose from knee problems, clinical depression and possible dementia. The tribunal held that, on the claimant's own case, the complaint could only logically be advanced as direct discrimination because of the husband's aggression, not because of disability, and that any link to disability would in any event be affected by regulation 4(1)(c) of the Equality Act 2010 (Disability) Regulations 2010 concerning a tendency to physical abuse. It also noted that a section 15 argument would not work because the disability in question was not the claimant's own. That claim was therefore also struck out.

After reading the witness statements filed for the hearing, the judge said they contained nothing that cast doubt on the initial conclusion. The reserved judgment therefore recorded that both the age discrimination claim and the disability discrimination claim were struck out, and no monetary remedy was awarded in this decision.