The Scottish Ambulance Service Board v Andrew Chapman

Under Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013, rule 12(1)(b), tribunal staff must refer a claim form to an Employment Judge where it cannot sensibly be answered. A claim identifying only disability discrimination, without any facts, alleged disability, dates or acts complained of, is incapable of sensible response.

The tribunal must not make case-management directions to obtain particulars before the Employment Judge has determined whether the tribunal has jurisdiction and whether the claim should be rejected. The mandatory rule applies despite the claimant's unrepresented status or a general imbalance of resources between the parties.

The claimant, a continuing employee of the Scottish Ambulance Service Board, submitted an ET1 claiming disability discrimination. He selected disability as the claim type and sought compensation and a recommendation, but left the section requiring details of the claim entirely blank.

The Employment Tribunal accepted the claim and directed him to provide a summary identifying the disability and relevant dates. The employer appealed. It contended that the form should first have been referred to an Employment Judge under rule 12(1)(b) of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013, because it could not sensibly respond to it.

The central issue was whether the absence of all particulars required referral and prevented the Tribunal from progressing the claim through case management.

1. Appeal allowed on the first and second grounds and remitted. The ET1 gave no information about the alleged disability, the conduct complained of, the relevant actors, or the dates of alleged discrimination. Identifying the claim only as disability discrimination did not enable the employer sensibly to respond.

2. Rule 12(1)(b) of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013 is mandatory. Tribunal staff must refer a form which may be incapable of sensible response to an Employment Judge. The conclusion was consistent with the observation in Trustees of the William Jones’s Schools Foundation v Parry [2018] ICR 1807 that an unparticularised discrimination claim may be incapable of response.

3. The same absence of information made it difficult for the ET to be confident that it had jurisdiction, within rule 12(1)(a). The Tribunal erred by directing further particularisation before an Employment Judge had considered whether the claim should be rejected and whether the ET had jurisdiction.

4. The claimant’s unrepresented status, the asserted imbalance between the parties, and general interests-of-justice submissions did not displace that objective procedural error. The employer was prejudiced because it could not identify the case it had to meet.

5. The third ground was otiose. The EAT would not have allowed the appeal upon it alone, although it observed that applying amendment principles is difficult without a foundational pleading from which to determine whether a proposed amendment is a new claim or further particularisation.

6. The EAT declined to decide itself whether the claim should be rejected. It set aside the acceptance and consequential case-management step, and remitted the matter for rule 12 consideration by a different Employment Judge.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: Allowed the employer’s appeal on grounds one and two in [2025] EAT 164, and remitted the claim for consideration under rule 12 by a different Employment Judge.
• Employment Tribunal: Accepted the ET1 and directed the claimant to provide a summary of the claim, including the asserted disability and relevant dates.