Mr K Nadarajah v Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd: 3307985/2025 and 3307986/2025
JUDGMENT
[1]The name of the respondent is changed to Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Limited.[2]The claimant’s claims with the above case numbers are dismissed under rule 47 of the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024.REASONS
[1]The claims made in these proceedings were stated in two ET1 claim forms. The first one concerned disciplinary action taken against the claimant in relation to the wearing by him of a cloth bracelet when working in the respondent’s Ruislip store as a Food Services Assistant. The second claim form concerned the claimant’s dismissal for (it was the respondent’s case) failing to dispose of out of date food.[2]The respondent presented a response to both claims in one set of grounds of resistance. I found the grounds to be less than clear in regard to the precise sequence of events which preceded the claimant’s dismissal. Several things were clear, however, and they were that(1) the name of the respondent should be changed to Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Limited, and(2) the claimant worked (it was the respondent’s case) in a “high risk open food area”.[3]The respondent had on 25 June 2025 written to the tribunal to say that the respondent’s name should be changed to Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Limited, and the claimant had not objected to that proposed change of name. I therefore decided that it should be so changed.[4]The first claim form did not say to which religion the cloth bracelet related and in what way that bracelet was related to that religion.[5]If the claimant had attended the hearing of 10 June 2026 (which was listed to start at 2pm) then I would have asked him about those things and I would have explored his case in regard to his dismissal. However, the claimant was not present in the building at 2pm. I therefore decided that the tribunal’s clerk should seek to speak to the claimant to find out why he was not present.[6]After the tribunal’s clerk had sought to speak to the claimant by telephone (the claimant did not answer the telephone) shortly after 2pm, I decided to wait until 2.15pm to see whether the claimant attended the hearing. He did not do so. As a result I started the hearing without the claimant present.[7]Shortly afterwards, the clerk found an email from the claimant sent at 13:10 on that day, 10 June 2026, which was not copied to the respondent and was in the following terms (which I have set out precisely as they were in the email, including the words “preliminary hearing currently listed for [date]”). “To: The Court Clerk / Case Management Team Dear Sir/Madam, Re: Request for Adjournment / Postponement of Preliminary Hearing - Case Number :3307985/2025 I respectfully request that the preliminary hearing currently listed for [date] be adjourned and relisted for a later date. When I initially received notification of the hearing, I understood that the matter was to proceed online. I subsequently received further correspondence indicating that the hearing had been changed to an inperson attendance requirement. Unfortunately, due to the short notice of this change and existing commitments, I am unable to make the necessary arrangements to attend the hearing in person on the scheduled date. I wish to participate fully in these proceedings and have no intention of delaying the matter unnecessarily. I am therefore respectfully requesting that the hearing be postponed to the next available date to allow me sufficient time to make the appropriate arrangements and ensure my attendance. I apologise for any inconvenience this request may cause and would be grateful if the Court could consider my application.”[8]I therefore looked at the documents on the tribunal’s case management system to see what correspondence had been sent to the parties about the hearing of 10 June 2026. The respondent’s solicitors had created a bundle for the hearing, and as I was looking online at the tribunal’s digital records, Mr Carter assisted me by pointing out that there was in that bundle, at pages 74-76 a letter from the tribunal dated 23 December 2025 which was headed “NOTICE OF PRELIMINARY HEARING FOR CASE MANAGEMENT on 10 June 2026 at 14:00”. The first numbered paragraph of that letter was in these terms: “There will be a preliminary hearing at 2nd Floor, Radius House, 51 Clarendon Road, Watford, WD17 1HP on 10 June 2026. The hearing will start at 14:00. You must arrive 15 minutes before the start time.”[9]At pages 77-78 there was another letter, also dated 23 December 2025, from the tribunal to the parties, informing them of the changed case numbers which I have recorded in the header to this document and concluding with this paragraph: “Parties to kindly note that the preliminary hearing listed for 10 Jun 2026 will be an in-person hearing. The notice of hearing is hereby attached.”[10]Those documents were also in the tribunal’s case management system.[11]Given that the claimant had not attended the hearing, rule 47 of the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024 applied. That provides: “If a party fails to attend or to be represented at a hearing, the Tribunal may dismiss the claim or proceed with the hearing in the absence of that party. Before doing so, it must consider any information which is available to it, after any enquiries that may be practicable, about the reasons for the party’s absence.”[12]I decided that the claim should be dismissed on the basis that it was in the interests of justice to do so not least because it appeared to me that the claimant was not intent on pursuing his claims. That was not least because the reason given by the claimant for not being able to attend the hearing did not bear scrutiny and in my view there was no good reason for him not being able to attend the hearing. I say that the reason given by the claimant for not being able to attend the hearing did not bear scrutiny because the claimant wrote (as I record in paragraph 7 above) that “Unfortunately, due to the short notice of this change” he was “unable to make the necessary arrangements to attend the hearing in person on the scheduled date”. The notice of the change was (as can be seen from what I say in paragraphs 8-10 above) given some five and a half months before the hearing, and that was not “short notice”.[13]I add that the claimant may apply for a reconsideration of this judgment under rule 69 of the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024. Such an application would need to be made within 14 days of the sending of this judgment to the parties and would need to “set out why reconsideration of the original decision is necessary”. An extension of time could be granted for the making of such an application, but there would have to be good reason for such an extension. More importantly, the claimant would need to be able to show that there was good reason for him not attending the hearing, even if only by video. It is possible that he simply forgot about the hearing. If that was so then he should have said so, and not sought to mislead the tribunal.[14]In addition, if the claimant were to apply for a reconsideration then he would have to say whether he accepted the accuracy of what was said in paragraph 11 of the grounds of resistance, which was this: ‘The Respondent’s Retail Food Safety Code of Practice states that “Jewellery can harbour dirt and bacteria and has the potential to fall into product and become a foreign body hazard.” As such “Watches or bracelets, with the exception of medical identification bracelets, shall not be worn. Where possible, such information should be carried on a neck chain worn within the colleague’s uniform.”’[15]If the claimant does accept that that is accurate then he will have to say in what way the cloth bracelet that he was wearing on 4 January 2025 was related to a religion, and which religion it was. Approved by