Ms M Townsend v Portsmouth City Council — 2024

This was a preliminary hearing before Employment Judge Leverton sitting alone on 27 February 2025. Ms M Townsend did not attend and was not represented. The tribunal said the case had previously been listed for case management, postponed twice at the Claimant’s request for health reasons, and then proceeded in her absence after a further postponement was refused because the tribunal was not satisfied she had shown she was medically unfit to attend a short telephone hearing.

Following the case management hearing on 9 October 2024, EJ Ferguson ordered the Claimant to clarify any amendment application, confirm whether any data protection complaint was pursued and on what basis, state what reasonable adjustments were said to have been required, provide further details of any disability-related harassment, and lodge a schedule of loss. The Claimant did not comply with those directions. The tribunal noted her later email referring to a subject access request and an ICO complaint, but held that this did not explain the non-compliance or address the missing particulars, including what conduct was said to amount to disability-related harassment and what reasonable adjustments were sought.

The tribunal accepted the Respondent’s strike-out application. It found that the Claimant had not complied with the tribunal’s orders and had not actively pursued the claims, including by failing to attend the hearing or make any meaningful representations. It therefore struck out the disability discrimination claims under rule 38(1)(c) of the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024, alternatively rule 38(1)(d), and said that if necessary they would also have been struck out under rule 38(1)(a) because they were pleaded with no reasonable prospect of success. The tribunal also noted, but did not treat as curing the non-compliance, that the Respondent’s disclosure had itself been late and incomplete for the purposes of the preliminary hearing.

The separate data protection/subject access complaint was struck out under rule 38(1)(a). The tribunal said that, insofar as the Claimant wished to pursue data protection breaches or subject access rights, those were not matters within the Employment Tribunal’s jurisdiction.