Ms Christine Mireille Gonda v The Royal an Lochan — 2017

This was a preliminary hearing in Glasgow on 3 February 2017 before Employment Judge Shona MacLean. The claimant sought leave to amend her claim from ordinary unfair dismissal to unfair dismissal due to assertion of a statutory right. The respondent opposed the amendment and relied, among other matters, on the earlier tribunal judgment in case 4102638/2016.

The tribunal found that the claimant began work on 20 October 2014 and that her employment ended after the respondent’s dismissal letter dated 9 September 2016. It held that the proposed amendment was substantial because the original claim form did not identify the statutory right relied on, nor when, where, or to whom it had been asserted. The tribunal also found that the facts underlying the proposed amendment were already within the claimant’s knowledge when she presented the original claim.

Applying rule 29 and the overriding objective, the tribunal balanced the interests of justice and the relative hardship to the parties. It accepted that the claimant would not be able to pursue an ordinary unfair dismissal claim because she lacked sufficient qualifying service, but it held that allowing the amendment would require further clarification, case management, delay, and expense. The tribunal also noted the earlier judgment’s findings that there were no guaranteed hours and that the redundancy explanation was supported by the findings in that case, so any compensatory award was likely to be little or none. The application to amend was refused, and the unfair dismissal claim was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.