Race discrimination claim partly struck out: third-party motive not enough

What this case shows

This case illustrates the difficulty of proving race discrimination when the initial decision to remove an employee from a client site was made by a third party, not the employer. The former employee accepted that her line manager, Mr. Rai, was not acting with discriminatory intent when he removed her from the Uxbridge JobCentre Plus at the request of a client manager, Mr. Heath. This admission fatally undermined her claim that the removal itself was an act of race discrimination.

However, the tribunal allowed her other allegations – that her subsequent suspension, disciplinary action, and dismissal were discriminatory – to proceed. Those allegations did not rely on the third party's motive but on the line manager's own actions, which the claimant argued were motivated by race.

What the respondent did right

Mitie FM Ltd successfully argued that the removal allegation had no reasonable prospects of success because the claimant could not show that her employer acted with discriminatory intent. The respondent's application focused on the pleaded case rather than requiring the claimant to respond to new evidence at the hearing, which the tribunal noted was a proper concession that ensured a fair hearing.

Why this matters

This decision highlights that an employer cannot be held liable for discrimination based solely on a third party's discriminatory motive. The claimant must show that the employer itself acted with a discriminatory intent. For employees considering a race discrimination claim, it is crucial to distinguish between decisions made by third parties and those made by the employer, and to gather evidence that the employer's own actions were motivated by a protected characteristic.