Mr C Oliveira The City of Edinburgh Council and others v (trading as Camwal Engineering) — 2023

The preliminary hearing considered the claimant's application to amend his claim and the respondents' application to strike out the existing claims, or alternatively for deposit orders. The claimant left the hearing after raising matters about alleged intimidation and alleged conflict of interest, and the tribunal continued in his absence after explaining that it would do so if he left.

The amendment application was refused. The tribunal found that the proposed amendment was not clearly expressed, did not explain the nature of the claim, appeared on its face to be out of time, and did not set out why it would be just and equitable to extend time. The tribunal recorded that the claimant had been given a number of opportunities to set out the amendment clearly and had failed to do so.

The tribunal then considered the existing claims. The section 47B protected disclosure detriment claim was struck out because the protected disclosure, the alleged detriment, and the connection between them were not discernible from the claim as pleaded. The unlawful deduction from wages claim concerned alleged sick pay underpayment, but the tribunal recorded that the claimant had not pointed to a contractual provision said to have been breached.

The disability discrimination claims, including discrimination arising from disability and failure to make reasonable adjustments, were struck out. For the purposes of the strike-out application the tribunal assumed disability, but found that the claimant had not identified the relevant disability-related matter, provision criterion or practice, substantial disadvantage, or facts linking the complained-of interview and workplace matters to disability. The direct and indirect discrimination allegations based on disability and religion were also struck out because the tribunal found no pleaded facts from which direct discrimination could be inferred and no basis for indirect discrimination.

The harassment allegations on grounds of disability, age, religion, sex and race were struck out because the claimant repeated allegations about the job interview and working in workplaces said to be infected with COVID-19, but did not offer facts from which the tribunal could conclude that the treatment amounted to harassment or was related to any protected characteristic. The victimisation claim was struck out because the alleged protected act was bringing discrimination proceedings, but those proceedings were raised after the alleged detriment.

The tribunal stated that strike out is a draconian step and considered the claimant's status as an unrepresented party, the previous preliminary hearings, and the opportunities he had been given to clarify his claims. It concluded that, even taken at their highest, all claims had no reasonable prospects of success. In the alternative, the tribunal held that the whole claim should be struck out because the claimant's conduct in not participating in the hearing was unreasonable under Rule 37(1)(b) and/or amounted to a failure actively to pursue the claim under Rule 37(1)(d). No remedy was awarded.