No duty to rebuild the claim: EAT clarifies tribunal role in unpleaded disabilities
In Maltby v Chestnut Inns [2025] EAT 130 a chef alleged disability discrimination but relied on different conditions at different times, from Crohn's disease to PTSD, asthma, obesity and an old arm injury. Applying Moustache, the EAT reaffirmed that Employment Tribunal proceedings are adversarial: the burden lies on the parties to set out their case, and a tribunal has no general duty to identify or expand a claimant's pleaded case, even for litigants in person, unless the claim 'shouts out' from the materials. Evidence of mental ill health does not automatically impose a higher duty on the tribunal to reconstruct the case. Reconsideration applications cannot be used to advance new arguments or evidence that could have been raised at the original hearing.
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Key authorities
- Maltby v Chestnut Inns Ltd [2025] EAT 130
- Moustache v Chelsea Westminster Hospital NHS FT [2025] EWCA Civ 185; [2025] ICR 1231
- Drysdale v Department of Transport [2014] EWCA Civ 1083; [2014] IRLR 892
- McLeary v One Housing Group UKEAT/0124/18
- Mervyn v BW Controls Ltd [2020] EWCA Civ 393; [2020] ICR 1364
- Mensah and Muschett v HM Prison Service [2010] EWCA Civ 25
- Heal v University of Oxford [2020] ICR 1294
- Rackham v NHS Professionals Ltd UKEAT/0110/15
- Cox v Adecco [2021] ICR 1307
- Outasight VB Ltd v Brown UKEAT/0253/14
Where this sits in a claim
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