Strike out justified where claimant deliberately flouted an order
In EB v BA (UKEAT/0139/08) the claimant alleged that her employer had committed various acts of sex discrimination by withholding work projects from her. There were over 900 projects for consideration. The parties agreed that the number would be unmanageable. The tribunal issued an ‘unless’ order, i.e. unless the claimant identified which projects she did not wish to pursue, her claim would be struck out. Her response indicated that there were no projects that she did not want to pursue.
The EAT upheld the tribunal’s decision to strike out the claimant’s claim. It accepted that on a strictly literal construction of the Tribunal’s order the response could be said to fall within its terms, but given the fact that the claimant herself recognised that the proceedings were unmanageable and that she could identify irrelevant projects, she fully understood the intention behind the order, and was deliberately flouting it.
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