Journalist loses argument that judge overlooked claims (Hassan v BBC)

An Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) judge on 4 April 2023 dismissed a former BBC journalist’s application to revive some of the arguments about why they left the broadcaster, ruling that the employment tribunal (ET) had correctly identified the issues to be heard.

Hassan v BBC [2023] EAT 48

Mrs Justice Eady, President of the EAT, rejected the appeal brought by the former BBC employee (identified as H Hassan) who claimed that an order made at a preliminary hearing wrongly determined the issues in their case.

‘Contrary to the claimant’s objections, [Judge Pavel Klimov] did not err in the identification of the claims and issues in this case’, Eady J wrote. ‘The case management exercise that was undertaken on 7 April 2022 did not cut down a case that could properly be identified on the pleadings.’

Hassan, who worked as a broadcast journalist for the BBC from 2011 to 2019, alleged that they had been addressed inappropriately by colleagues on the BBC Arabic radio team in 2017, according to the judgment. In 2018, Hassan was temporarily moved onto the social media team after they raised a second grievance, asking to be relocated.

The BBC said it expected Hassan to return to the radio team in September 2019, the judgment says, but they did not come back to work. In October 2019, the BBC launched a disciplinary action because of Hassan’s failure to return, and Hassan accepted voluntary redundancy in December 2019.

The journalist lodged a claim with the ET in February 2020, complaining of breach of contract and constructive unfair dismissal, as well as disability discrimination (a failure to make reasonable adjustments) and victimisation.

Hassan argued that they weren’t just complaining about not being allowed to switch teams, they had also suffered a range of other grievances as a result of the decision.

The BBC rejected the arguments in March 2020, according to the judgment, saying that it did not consider the claims to be clear and that any claim of disability discrimination had been brought too late.

Both parties attended a number of preliminary hearings before 7 April 2022. At that hearing, before ET Judge Pavel Klimov, the tribunal made rulings about which matters would be presented at a full merits hearing, to begin in November 2022.

Hassan filed an appeal objecting to the issues to be determined. They argued that the ET proceedings should be stayed until the determination of that appeal, but Judge Klimov refused the request.

The ET ultimately dismissed Hassan’s claims at the end of the full merits hearing in November 2022.

Hassan argued that the ET wrongly limited their claims to a single factual allegation when their case included others.

But Eady J found that the ET did not cut down Hassan’s case when it drew up the list of issues in April 2022. She held that to have defined the claim more broadly as including additional complaints of disability discrimination arising in 2017 and 2018, would have been to allow Hassan to extend her case some two years after the proceedings had commenced. These were not claims that ‘shouted out’ from the original details of claim or from a later draft Particulars of Claim.

Eady J ruled that it would have been inconsistent to have added claims at the April 2022 hearing, saying it would have ‘undermined the earlier case management’ and been unfair to the BBC.

‘At each of the preliminary hearings in this case, the [ET] had undertaken the task required of it’, Eady J wrote. ‘The [ET] did not then err in law in proceeding on the same understanding as to the nature and extent of the claims when it came to set down the list of issues at the hearing on 7 April 2022.’

Case details

• Court: Employment Appeal Tribunal
• Judge: Mrs Justice Eady
• Date of judgment: 4 April 2023

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