Raithatha v Leicester City Council

A Step 1 grievance may incorporate detailed allegations by reference to an earlier ET1, provided that, read fairly and in context, the employer could be expected to appreciate that the relevant complaints were being raised.

The inclusion of other matters, including dismissal complaints, claims, or matters previously resolved, does not deprive the document of its status as a grievance. The statutory procedure requires the grievance to be set out in writing and sent to the employer; it does not require a particular form or the exclusion of unrelated material.

The claimant appealed against an Employment Judge’s decision that he had failed to comply with section 32 of the Employment Act 2002 in relation to four discrimination and reasonable-adjustment allegations pleaded in a second ET1.

After presenting a first ET1, the claimant’s solicitors sent a letter stating that it was to be treated as a Step 1 grievance and incorporating the first ET1’s grounds of application. The Employment Judge held that the letter did not sufficiently distinguish grievances from claims, dismissal allegations, and resolved matters. The central issue was whether the incorporated ET1 particulars constituted a written grievance.

1. Appeal allowed. The four claims in issue were permitted to proceed to a full merits hearing, alongside the two claims already allowed to proceed.
2. In Gibbs t/a Jarlands Financial Services v Harris UKEAT/0023/07, the issue was whether the lodging and service of an ET1 itself constituted a grievance. That situation was distinguishable. Here, the solicitors’ letter expressly stated that it was to be treated as a Step 1 grievance and incorporated the first ET1’s detailed particulars by reference.
3. The statutory requirement was that the employee set out the grievance in writing and send the statement, or a copy of it, to the employer. A grievance was a complaint about action taken or contemplated by the employer. Other material could be included without undermining the document’s status as a grievance.
4. The inclusion of dismissal complaints, claims as well as complaints, and matters which might previously have been resolved did not invalidate the grievance. The relevant question was whether, on a fair reading and in context, the employer could be expected to appreciate that the relevant complaints were being raised.
5. The guidance in Canary Wharf Management Ltd v Edebe [2006] IRLR 416 supported a contextual and non-technical approach. Its discussion of an extant grievance concerned complaints so old or apparently resolved that they were no longer live; it did not require a document containing live complaints to identify and exclude every resolved matter.
6. The particular method adopted could be unsafe or unsatisfactory in other cases. On the facts, however, the history and the incorporated grounds made the relevant complaints, including the four matters in issue, sufficiently clear. Any limitation issues could be determined at the merits hearing.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: allowed the appeal from the Employment Judge’s pre-hearing review judgment entered on 24 March 2010. The four disputed claims were allowed to proceed to a full merits hearing.