Birmingham City Council v Adams

For the purposes of Rule 1(4)(e) of the 2004 ET Rules, a claim form may provide the required details of a claim by a clear written cross-reference to readily identifiable particulars filed in a related claim. The question is objective: whether a reasonable employer could discern the causes of action asserted from the claim form and its surrounding context.

A literal and restrictive approach is inappropriate. Separate claim forms presented in substantially the same proceedings need not each reproduce identical particulars where the cross-reference enables the respondent to identify them without difficulty.

The City Council appealed against an Employment Tribunal order dismissing its application to strike out, for want of jurisdiction, a number of equal-pay claims. Apart from one claimant whose ET1 included full particulars, the claimants’ separate ET1s referred to particulars attached to another claimant’s ET1 or to identified pleadings in related proceedings.

The Council contended that those forms did not themselves contain the “details of the claim” required by Rule 1(4)(e) of the 2004 ET Rules. The central issue was whether the written cross-references constituted valid presentation of those details.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Employment Tribunal made no error of law in holding that each disputed ET1 complied with Rule 1(4)(e) of the 2004 ET Rules.

2. The applicable question was whether, viewed objectively, a reasonable employer could discern from the claim form, read in its context, the causes of action alleged. The rule did not require the same particulars to be physically attached to every separate ET1 where the form clearly identified existing and adequately particularised pleadings.

3. For the claims submitted on the same day, against the same respondents and by the same solicitors, the reference to the particulars attached to Kalaisho Devi’s ET1 was sufficiently clear. The Council would have received the relevant forms and notices at about the same time and could readily identify the incorporated particulars.

4. The same conclusion applied to later forms which identified the relied-on claim by its presentation date, case number or multiple number. A reference to the Ardron pleadings and to the Deborah Ann Adams proceedings enabled a reasonable employer to identify the particulars without delay.

5. The Court of Appeal decision in Parry, [2018] EWCA Civ 672, concerned a different rule under the 2013 Rules. It did not support the contention that the earlier authorities adopting a non-technical approach had been wrongly decided. Its observation that tribunals should avoid artificial barriers to genuine claims was consistent with that approach.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: dismissed the City Council’s appeal and upheld the Employment Tribunal’s refusal to dismiss the disputed claims for want of jurisdiction.
• Employment Tribunal, Birmingham: dismissed the City Council’s application to dismiss the claims, save insofar as matters not relevant to this appeal were concerned.