EAT Practice and Procedure : Striking-Out/Dismissal – Strikeout of a race discrimination claim, following non-payment of a deposit required by a Deposit Order (DO). Appeal listed to be heard (jointly with another) because the sole amended ground, permitted to proceed to full hearing, raised issues of potential importance as to the interface between the time to pay allowed by the DO and time limits for review/appeal.
In the event that ground not pursued.
Instead, the Claimant argued (with permission) only that the particular DO was defective in law because on its face it did not expressly state that strike out would be the sanction for non-payment. Consequently, the strike out order could not have been properly made given the invalidity of the DO.
HELD: there was no deficiency in the DO. It used the language used in rule 20(1). It made it clear that unless the deposit was paid, the Claimant could not continue with the claim. There was no requirement in the rules or anywhere else that a DO must set out that the way that effect would be achieved was by the legal mechanism of striking out.
Failure to give notice to the Respondent of this change of tack – in relation to the points to be argued on the appeal – until after the start of the hearing led to an award of costs.
Recorder Luba QC
[2013] UKEAT 0297 – 13 – 1411
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 28 November 2021; Ref: scu.520023