Mr R Joseph v PizzaExpress (Restaurants) Limited — 2025

At a preliminary hearing in Aberdeen on 10 July 2025, Employment Judge A Kemp considered Mr R Joseph's application for interim relief under s.128 ERA 1996 in a claim that PizzaExpress Ltd had dismissed him automatically unfairly under s.103A ERA 1996 because of protected disclosures. The hearing was on a summary basis, without oral evidence, and the tribunal applied the interim-relief threshold by asking whether the claim had a "pretty good chance" of success rather than whether it was more likely than not.

The tribunal accepted that some of the matters raised by the claimant were capable of amounting to protected disclosures, including concerns about food safety, staffing levels, and breaks under the Working Time Regulations 1998, and said he had a pretty good chance of showing that he made protected disclosures. It also recorded the claimant's arguments about the 8 April 2025 incident involving Mr Tortolano, the handling of the grievance and disciplinary process, and the contrast between the respondent's treatment of him and Mr Tortolano.

On the written material before it, however, the tribunal found there was enough evidence for a decision-maker to conclude gross misconduct, including witness statements about alleged abusive or inappropriate comments, the claimant's partial admission to calling a colleague a "bald fucking loser", an allegation about a brownie remark, and an email apparently sent to the claimant's own account from a store iPad. The judge said the conspiracy case was possible but not straightforward on the material available, concluded that the statutory test for interim relief was not met, and refused the application. The decision states that this was not a final ruling on the underlying s.103A claim, which remained to be decided at a full hearing.