Miss F Greasley v Common Thread Ltd — 2019

This was a preliminary hearing in a claim presented on 12 October 2018 alleging unfair dismissal and discrimination because of race and disability. The respondent applied to strike out the claim for non-compliance with Orders requiring clarification of the disability, race discrimination, and dismissal issues. The tribunal also considered whether it should determine disability status, but declined to do so because the claimant had not provided information that would assist the tribunal or the respondent.

Applying rule 37(1)(c) of the Employment Tribunals Rules and the rule 2 overriding objective, the tribunal found there had been total non-compliance with the Orders and that the case had made little progress since presentation. Even so, it concluded that a fair trial was still possible with further case management. It therefore refused strike out, set aside the earlier uncomplied-with Orders, and issued a fresh Unless Order giving the claimant one final opportunity to answer specific questions about the alleged disability, how it was communicated to the respondent, the legal basis of the race discrimination complaint, and whether she pursued unfair dismissal or automatically unfair dismissal.

The tribunal also refused the claimant's application to amend the claim to add victimisation under section 27 of the Equality Act. It treated the proposed amendment as a new head of claim not foreshadowed in the original claim form, considered there to be potential time-limit issues, and found the application was late and insufficiently particularised. Balancing prejudice, it held that the respondent would be put to further preparation burden in a case that was already protracted and insufficiently specified, so the balance of prejudice lay with the respondent.