When lodging tribunal proceedings, claimants have to clearly set out each of their complaint/s, supported by factual evidence.
In Hassan v BBC, the EAT held that having predicated her complaint of disability discrimination on one specific act in 2019, Ms Hassan could not subsequently amend it to include a whole range of other matters that included everything that had gone wrong with her work since 2017.
Basic facts
Ms Hassan, a broadcast journalist in the Arabic radio team for the BBC World Service, raised a “gender-related” grievance in January 2017 which was not upheld. After raising a second grievance in August 2018, she was temporarily moved to the social media team at her request.
Following discussions in August and September 2019, her manager made clear on 13 September that she would have to return to the radio team and that failure to do so would lead to disciplinary action. As she did not return, she was given a final formal warning on 21 October. Following a restructure of BBC Arabic in November 2019, Ms Hassan accepted an offer of redundancy and left on 9 December.
In February 2020, she lodged a number of tribunal claims including disability discrimination and victimisation. She argued that the BBC should have allowed her to remain in the social media team as a reasonable adjustment for her depression which she said was triggered and fuelled by her working environment and that the discrimination continued until her dismissal on 9 December. In addition, the refusal to allow her to remain in the new team was victimisation for her 2017 grievance.
In its response, the BBC said that not only were her complaints poorly formulated but also that her claim of disability discrimination was out of time as the decision on which it relied had been made in September 2019.
Tribunal decision
The tribunal held that although her discrimination claim was out of time, it was just and equitable to extend the time limit as the delay was not substantial and there was plenty of documentary evidence to help any fading memories.
Ms Hassan then asked to amend her claim to include events in 2017 and 2018. These were mainly rejected on the basis that they transformed it from one that focused on the decision not to allow her to change teams in September 2019 to a “vast sprawling” claim about everything that had gone wrong with her work since 2017. The tribunal, therefore, held that the list of issues to be determined at the full merits hearing should be restricted to her complaint relating to September 2019.
Ms Hassan appealed, arguing that the tribunal was wrong to limit the issues to be determined to a single factual allegation, when her pleaded case had clearly included many others.
EAT decision
Dismissing her appeal, the EAT held that it was far from clear “on a reasonable reading of the pleading” that Ms Hassan was prosecuting a claim of disability discrimination in respect of the events of 2017.
If the tribunal had allowed her to include the additional complaints of disability discrimination arising in 2017 and 2018, she would effectively have been given the green light to extend her case two years or so after she had lodged the proceedings.
In addition, these were not claims that “shouted out” from the original details or from the more considered particulars that she had subsequently lodged.
Finally, the decision was entirely consistent with how the case had been understood at various previous stages when significant case management decisions had been taken.