EAT Practice and Procedure : Amendment – In a claim which asserted unfair dismissal, focussing upon unfair selection for redundancy and a failure to provide suitable alternative employment, an EJ allowed an amendment by which the Claimant sought alternatively to argue that her dismissal was automatically unfair because the rest of her team (with one of whom she had compared herself for the purposes of establishing unfair selection) had been transferred under TUPE whilst she had not. The exercise of her discretion was flawed, because the Judge materially thought that the original claim asserted that the team had been transferred to new employers, when it did not; that the new claim was simply a re-labelling of the same facts as the original; and the Appeal Tribunal could not reasonably interpret her to be saying merely that much of the same factual background would have to be explored. This was an error of law. Exercising its own discretion, especially in the light of Selkent v Moore, the EAT held nonetheless that the amendment should be allowed.
Langstaff P J
[2014] UKEAT 0096 – 14 – 1405
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 20 December 2021; Ref: scu.535997