C Merriman v 1st Staff Limited & Ors

Facts

The claimant, Ms C Merriman, had been engaged through an agency to work as a tutor for a person with special needs. Responsibility for funding appears to have shifted at one point between the NHS and the local authority, although neither body — which would have been the principal for an agency worker — was joined as a respondent. A complex series of "umbrella" and/or service companies had been used at various times to pay the claimant, which explains the twelve named respondents, of whom only the first to fifth remained. The claimant developed disabilities which made it very difficult for her to attend the premises where the individual she tutored resided, and she sought adjustments including online rather than face-to-face teaching. At a preliminary hearing held in her absence, the Employment Tribunal sitting at Midlands East, EJ Broughton sitting alone, allowed her claim under sections 20 and 21 of the Equality Act of a failure to make reasonable adjustments to proceed against the first respondent, but struck out the equivalent claims against the second to fifth respondents — all individuals working for the first respondent — as having no reasonable prospects of success, holding that such a claim cannot be brought against individuals. John Bowers KC, sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court, permitted the appeal to proceed to a final hearing on one ground only.