Mr L Ramos v Platinum Cleaning Services South West Ltd and Mr Harvey: 6003812/2024

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS

Case No 6003812/2024

Between

Mr L RamosClaimant

Platinum Cleaning Services South West Ltd and Mr HarveyRespondent

Before

Employment Judge Livesey

In person for claimant

In person for respondent

Date 17 February 2025

JUDGMENT

[1]The Claimant’s application to amend his claim is refused.

[2]The claim is dismissed.

REASONS

[1]By a claim form presented on 12 June 2024, the Claimant brought complaints of discrimination on the grounds of sex.

[2]The Respondents failed to serve responses within the prescribed timeframe and were notified accordingly on 2 January 2025. This hearing was then converted into a liability and remedy hearing for which the Claimant supplied a witness statement and Schedule of Loss on 10 February.

[3]On 10 February, the Tribunal received an email from the Second Respondent as follows; “Good afternoon This is to inform you this person has never worked for us he must have the wrong cleaning company we are not even trading sloths myself and a friend was doing this venture together but hadn’t materialised I there for will be closing this down via company house I hope Mr Ramos finds the right company I was contacted by another person end of last week saying this looks like a prolific claimer and could be a scam I have rang Bristol office a few times but always rings off if I can be of any help please call me”

[4]The Respondents were urged to submit a response and apply for an extension of time. They did not do so.

[5]At the hearing, I heard evidence from the Claimant on his claim and, at his invitation and with my agreement under rule 22 (3), I also heard evidence from the Second Respondent. The Claimant had produced a small bundle of evidence, including the material advertisements. Factual findings

[6]I reached the following factual findings on the balance of probabilities.

[7]The Claimant complained that the First Respondent had placed an advertisement for a ‘female house cleaner’ on the website Indeed. In the Statement of Claim served with the Claim Form, he did not say that he had applied for the role, but did assert that he had been treated “less favourably because I was excluded from the recruitment process” and that he “felt upset when reading the discriminatory contents of this advert”.

[8]He claimed that he had been the victim of direct discrimination under s. 13, that the First Respondent had no occupational requirement for a woman in the role and that the Second Respondent, the First Respondent’s Director, ought to have been involved in case the First Respondent “does not have enough money to pay me”.

[9]In his witness statement dated 10 February 2025, the Claimant maintained that he had applied for the role on 4 January 2024. In evidence, he said that he received an acknowledgement from Indeed, but nothing was ever received from the prospective employer.

[10]The Claimant lives in Hounslow and the job was advertised in the Vale of Glamorgan at the rate of £10.50/hr. It was part-time. The Claimant said that he would have relocated to have undertaken it. In light of what follows, that seemed somewhat unlikely, particularly as it was not clear how many hours work were to have been involved.

[11]The Claimant had issued many similar claims in the Employment Tribunals and has acknowledged that he was a “serial litigant before the EAT” (paragraph 75 of the decision in Ramos-v-Lady Coco

[2023] EAT 99

). In Ramos-v-Nottinghamshire Woman’s Aid Ltd and another

[2024] EAT 67

, HHJ Taylor had this to say; “Mr Lorenzo Ramos, also known as Lorenzo Garcia, is a serial litigant in the Employment Tribunals and the EAT. His modus operandi has been to find advertisements on the internet, that appear to be discriminatory, for jobs up and down the British Isles, and then bring claims in the Employment Tribunals, often without having applied for the job. It might be said that employers who do not take care with their job advertisements have only themselves to blame. But Mr Ramos does not act for the public good, he claims loss of earnings and injury to feelings. The wide geographical scope and variety of roles for which Mr Ramos applies puts in question whether he really wishes to be appointed. That question was answered firmly in the negative by the Employment Tribunal in Scotland in Mr L Ramos v Lady Coco Ltd t/a Shamela’s Fresh Hot and Cold Food 4110531/2021 where the three members of the Employment Tribunal unanimously concluded (para 32): “In short, the Tribunal was satisfied from the evidence presented that the claimant had no genuine desire of applying for the role the respondent had advertised. He was solely using the Tribunal process to seek money from the respondent.””

[12]Lest it be said that I ought not to have taken into account decisions in earlier cases in my assessment of this evidence regarding the Claimant’s legitimate desire to undertake the role advertised, paragraph 23 of the decision in the Nottinghamshire Woman’s Aid case was relevant; “Mr Ramos knows that he has made multiple similar claims using the names Mr L Ramos and Mr L Garcia. Employment Judge Welch was fully entitled to take these previous similar failed claims into account when considering the likelihood that Mr Ramos was genuinely interested in the job, for which he did not apply.” The identity of the Respondents

[13]The Claimant had issued proceedings against the Respondents, having undertaken a Companies House search against the name which appeared in the advertisement, ‘Platinum Cleaning Services’. There are a number of companies on the Companies House register which use the name ‘Platinum Cleaning Services’ in their titles.

[14]The First Respondent (Platinum Cleaning Services South West Ltd, Company Number 15339952) is based in Melksham, Wiltshire, a significant distance from the Vale of Glamorgan. In the town of Barry, within the Vale of Glamorgan, however, there is a business called Platinum Cleaning & Laundry Services Ltd (Number 14714424), which appears to trade as ‘Platinum Cleaning Services’ (that is the style that it uses on its website and email addresses).

[15]On the basis of fact that the name on the advertisements matched the trading name of Platinum Cleaning & Laundry Services Ltd and omitted any reference to ‘South West’, the geographical location of the work, the respective companies’ places of business and the Respondent’s email of 10 February, it was more likely than not that the Claimant had issued this claim in error against the wrong ‘Platinum Cleaning Services’ and that it had been the Welsh company which had placed the advertisements with which he took issue.

[16]The position was confirmed when Mr Harvey gave evidence. He stated that his business was not in any way related to the business in south Wales. The First Respondent did not have subsidiaries and it is not itself a subsidiary and/or a franchise. He had used the words ‘South West’ in the title when the company was incorporated, having realised that he was not able to register ‘Platinum Cleaning Services’ because the title had already been taken. He also pointed out the error in the Companies House website which identified his surname as ‘Iharvey’. His name is Mr Richard Ian Harvey.

[17]More importantly, Mr Harvey also stated that the First Respondent had not advertised in January 2024 for a cleaner in the Vale of Glamorgan on the website Indeed. Discussion and conclusions

[18]The claim could not succeed against these Respondents since it was probable that the Claimant had issued his claim against the wrong company. For the reasons set out above, it was more likely than not that Platinum Cleaning & Laundry Services Ltd, trading as Platinum Cleaning Services, had placed the advertisement. Whether it had been that company or some other, the adverts had not been written and/or placed by the First or Second Respondents.

[19]Yet further, since there was no evidence that the business saw, considered and rejected the Claimant’s application, his claim was probably not best considered as one of direct discrimination under s. 13. The advert was not formulated on the basis of his known characteristics and/or his application was not rejected because of his gender. The better claim would have been one under s. 19, as a complaint of indirect discrimination. He might have argued that the gender requirement in the advertisement had constituted a provision or criterion which, as a man, had created a group disadvantage. The difficulty then would have been proving the particular disadvantage suffered by him; he would have needed to have shown that he would have undertaken the role had he secured it. For the reasons stated above, I had considerable misgivings about that issue. Even as a claim under s. 13, that point negated the assertion of less favourable treatment or, at the very least, compensation. Application to amend

[20]At the end of the hearing, no doubt having realised the error that had been made, the Claimant applied to amend his claim to substitute Platinum Cleaning & Laundry Services Ltd as a new respondent. That application was refused for the following reasons;20.1 The amendment sought was not minor and/or a mere re-labelling exercise. It involved the addition and substitution of a new party;

20.2 The claim had been issued over 6 months ago and concerned events which were over a year old. A claim against that new party would have been significantly out of time since the doctrine of ‘relation back’ no longer applied to Employment Tribunal proceedings following Galilee-v-Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis UKEAT 0207/16/RN;

20.3 It was a matter for the Claimant to issue proceedings against the correct party. Whilst he complained that the business had failed to correctly and fully identify itself in the advertisement on Indeed, there were no doubt steps that he might have taken to have discovered the correct identity of the party behind the advertisement. It was unclear why he chose to join these Respondents, when so many other cleaning companies on the Companies House website had similar names;

20.4 This was not an early stage in the proceedings. This was the final hearing;

20.5 In accordance with the decision in In Vaughan-v-Modality

[2021] IRLR 97

, the EAT (HHJ Tayler), following the spirit of Underhill LJ in Abercrombie and others-v-Aga Rangemaster Ltd

[2014] ICR 209

, the practical consequences of allowing or refusing the amendment had to be considered. Here, the consequences of denying the amendment would be that the Claimant would have to issue a fresh claim against the correct respondents. He would be in no worse a position than he is now since the same jurisdictional time points would apply. He suffered no greater prejudice.