Ms Abbeigh N Harris v Represented by W Guldberg Adecco UK Ltd and 1 other — 2022

This was an Open Preliminary Hearing on the respondents' applications for strike out and deposit orders. Disability status was not in dispute. The Tribunal was dealing with the claimant's pleaded Equality Act claims at a preliminary stage only, so it did not determine the underlying merits; instead it assessed whether individual allegations had no reasonable prospect of success or little reasonable prospect of success.

The Tribunal refused strike out of the claimant's s13 direct disability discrimination allegation against Adecco based on the alleged failure to provide a Person of Contact, but it made a nominal £5 deposit order because the allegation was weakly particularised and the claimant had not identified a comparator. It also refused strike out of the separate s13 allegation against Adecco about termination of the assignment, treating that as a factual dispute about why the assignment ended and whether NM was treated differently for non-disability reasons.

As against Amazon, the Tribunal refused strike out of the claimant's s13 allegation that Amazon pressured Adecco to terminate her contract, but it made a nominal £5 deposit order because the pleaded basis for the allegation was insufficiently clear and the claimant had not given fair notice of the comparator or the precise case she was advancing. The Tribunal had regard to the claimant's limited means when fixing the deposit at £5 rather than a higher figure.

The Tribunal struck out the claimant's s15 discrimination arising from disability claim against Adecco under Rule 37. It held that the claimant had not pleaded a coherent 'something arising' case or a causal link between that matter and the unfavourable treatment relied upon, and that the claim had not been properly particularised despite earlier orders for further particulars. The Tribunal also made a nominal £5 deposit order on the claimant's s20/s21 reasonable adjustments claim against Adecco, treating the pleaded Person of Contact issue as at most an arguable one-off failure and concluding that the claim had little reasonable prospect of success on the material pleaded.