C Lucas (Sitting Alone) Mr Glenn Marr v Respondent — 2018

At the preliminary hearing in Glasgow on 14 August 2018, the tribunal dealt with the claimant's attempt to amend his ET1, the respondent's application to strike out the claim, and alternative applications for deposit orders. The claimant's case was that he had resigned on 24 November 2017 because of the outcome of a grievance process arising from his letter of 18 September 2017, and that he had been directly discriminated against because of his sex.

The tribunal held that the emails of 8 and 10 July 2018 were attempts to amend the existing claim. Applying the approach in Selkent Bus Co Ltd v Moore and Reuters Ltd v Cole, it refused permission to amend. It found the proposed matters were new allegations that could have been pleaded earlier, that timing and possible time bar were relevant, and that the balance of hardship favoured the respondent.

On strike out, the tribunal applied the Rule 37 test of whether the claim had no reasonable prospect of success. It refused to strike out either claim, saying it could not conclude at that stage that the constructive dismissal or sex discrimination claims had no reasonable prospect of success. The tribunal referred to authorities including Anyanwo, Ezsias, Timbo, Balls, Reilly, Williams, Shestak, Eastman, Ahir, Short and Wright.

Applying the lower Rule 39 threshold, the tribunal decided that both the constructive dismissal and sex discrimination allegations had little reasonable prospect of success and ordered a separate £1,000 deposit in respect of each. It found as fact that the claimant had voluntarily resigned rather than been actually dismissed, with the effective date of termination being 23 February 2018, but it did not make any final merits determination.