ETZ 4(WR) EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4102917/2023 Preliminary Hearing by Cloud Video Platform (CVP) at Edinburgh on August 2023 Employment Judge: M A Macleod Lisa Collier v West Lothian Leisure — 2023

At a preliminary hearing on 21 August 2023, Employment Judge M A Macleod held that the claimant’s unfair dismissal complaint could not proceed because she had worked for the respondent for less than two years, having been employed from 10 July 2021 to 28 February 2023. The ET1 only ticked unfair dismissal, and the tribunal noted that no automatic unfair dismissal case had been pleaded. On that basis, the unfair dismissal claim under section 94 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 was dismissed for want of jurisdiction under section 108(1).

The claimant also referred to a separate allegation of sexual harassment involving a customer at the gym in the same building as her workplace, and said that the respondent had failed to protect her. The tribunal said that aspect was not clearly formulated on the papers, that the customer was not employed by the respondent, and that there could therefore be no vicarious liability for his actions. Rather than disposing of the entire case, the tribunal ordered the claimant to provide further written specification of any Equality Act 2010 claim by 4 September 2023, including the statutory basis relied on, the acts said to amount to unlawful discrimination or sexual harassment, the basis for respondent responsibility, and whether dismissal was said to be discriminatory.