Ms A Seisay v Respondent — 2023

The final hearing was fixed for 5 and 6 June 2023 in Glasgow by CVP. Ms A Seisay did not attend and was not represented. Go-Centric Ltd (in liquidation) was also not represented; the liquidator had said in January and March 2023 that no steps would be taken in the tribunal claim because there would be no recovery for unsecured creditors, although holiday pay would attract preferential ranking.

On 24 March 2023 the tribunal ordered the claimant to provide specification of her claims, their statutory basis, the events or failures relied on, and details of witnesses. After an extension, the deadline became 25 May 2023, but by 2 June 2023 she still had not complied and had not provided a paginated bundle. The clerk’s attempts to arrange a CVP test and contact her by phone on 30 May and 2 June 2023 were unsuccessful. On the morning of the hearing she emailed saying she could not attend because her son had suffered a further racist attack and she was waiting for the school head teacher and the police, but when the tribunal asked her to clarify whether she wished to continue her complaints and to identify the incident she did not reply.

Taking the known circumstances together, the employment judge dismissed all claims under Rule 47 of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013 because it did not appear that the claimant wished actively to pursue the complaints. The judgment records that the claimant’s correspondence did not make clear whether an unforeseen emergency had arisen or whether she was referring to an earlier incident, and no merits findings were made.