Employment Tribunal Rejects Disability Discrimination Reconsideration Request

OUTCOME: Refused

Case Number: 6017834/2024 1 of 5 EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS Claimant: [redacted] Respondent: [redacted] Considered at: London South Employment Tribunal By: Employment Judge Sudra On: 13th April 2026

JUDGMENT on RECONSIDERATION The Claimant’s application for reconsideration of the Judgment in this matter, made on 7th April 2026, is refused and the decision in that Judgment is CONFIRMED. Application 1. The Respondent applied, under Rule 69 of the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024, for reconsideration of the Tribunal’s decision.

2. The Claimant, on 8th April 2026, has applied for a reconsideration of the Judgment as she says, inter alia:

Case Number: 6017834/2024 2 of 5 ‘1. The Claimant is requesting that the Tribunal reconsiders the decision made by Employment Judge Sudra on 7 April 2026, deciding that the Claimant was disabled from December 2023. As this decision was made on the grounds of the MRI scan for December 2023 and NOT the MRI scan for 8 January 2020, which is not in the Claimant’s position and is being withheld by Guy’s and St. Thomas’s hospital.

2. The Claimant has made an application to the Tribunal for a Witness Order, to order Guy’s and St. Thomas’s hospital to produce the Claimant’s MRI pelvic scan report for 8 January 2020. The ICO have written to Guy’s and St. Thomas’s hospital regarding the GDPR violations issue and they have failed to rectify the matter and have failed to produce the Claimant’s MRI report for the Pelvic Scan carried out on 8 January 2020.

3. In order for the employment tribunal judge to deal with this matter justly and fairly, allowing the Tribunal to regulate their own procedure and overlook strict legal rules of evidence to reach a fair decision regarding the Claimants date of disability. The Claimant’s MRI pelvic scan report for 8 January 2020 is required and expert witnesses. 7. (sic) Employment tribunal judge Sudra on 7 April 2026 made a decision without the Claimant’s MRI pelvic scan report for 8 January 2020. The Claimant made the Judge aware that the hospital have been refusing to provide her evidence. Therefore, the Tribunal has violated Article 6, the Claimant’s rights to a fair trial of The Human Rights Act 1998. Which has caused the Claimant to file this reconsideration under, Rule 69 of the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024 (SI 2024/1155) Application for a Reconsideration.’

REASONS Discussion of the Grounds in this Application 3. The Claimant and Respondent had produced a joint bundle for the Preliminary Hearing before me on 7th April 2026. The Claimant stated that MRI scan results from 8th January 2020 would show that she was a disabled person under s.6 of the Equality Act 2010 with the impairment of endometriosis.

Case Number: 6017834/2024 3 of 5 4. The [APPELLANT] also stated that she was unable to disclose the MRI scan results relied upon as she did not have them and that the relevant NHS trust had not released them to her. Relevant Law 5. There is an underlying public policy principle in all judicial proceedings that there should be finality in litigation, and reconsideration applications are a limited exception to that rule. The importance of finality was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in Ministry of Justice v. [NAME] and anor [2016] EWCA Civ 714 in July 2016 where [NAME] LJ said that: ‘…the discretion to act in the interests of justice is not open-ended; it should be exercised in a principled way, and the earlier case law cannot be ignored. In particular, the courts have emphasised the importance of finality ([NAME] v. Eastern Electricity Board [1975] ICR 395) which militates against the discretion being exercised too readily; and in [NAME] v. [NAME] [1994] ICR 384 Mummery J held that the failure of a party's representative to draw attention to a particular argument will not generally justify granting a review.’ 6. Similarly, in Liddington v. 2Gether NHS Foundation Trust EAT/0002/16 the EAT chaired by [NAME] (as she then was) said in paragraph 34 that: ‘a request for reconsideration is not an opportunity for a party to seek to re-litigate matters that have already been litigated, or to reargue matters in a different way or by adopting points previously omitted. There is an underlying public policy principle in all judicial proceedings that there should be finality in litigation, and reconsideration applications are a limited exception to that rule. They are not a means by which to have a second bite at the cherry, nor are they intended to provide parties with the opportunity of a rehearing at which the same evidence and the same arguments can be rehearsed but with different emphasis or additional evidence that was previously available being tendered.’

Case Number: 6017834/2024 4 of 5 7. In common with all powers under the 2024 Rules, reconsideration under rule 70 must be conducted in accordance with the Overriding Objective which appears in rule 3, namely, to deal with cases fairly and justly. Achieving finality in litigation is part of a fair and just adjudication.

8. Reconsideration is not a means by which to have a second bite at the cherry, or is it intended to provide parties with the opportunity of a rehearing at which the same evidence and the same arguments can be rehearsed but with different emphasis or additional evidence that was previously available being tendered.

9. Tribunals have a wide discretion whether or not to order reconsideration. Where a matter has been fully ventilated and properly argued, and in the absence of any identifiable administrative error or event occurring after the hearing that requires a reconsideration in the interests of justice, any asserted error of law is to be corrected on appeal and not through the back door by way of a reconsideration application. Conclusions 10. Whilst the Claimant’s reconsideration application consist of five pages, it is difficult not to deal with it in a concise manner.

11. The nub of the Claimant’s application is that the Tribunal made a decision on the evidence available before it when it should have found in the Claimant’s favour based on the results of an MRI scan which the [APPELLANT] herself does not possess.

12. It is challenging to identify the logic in such an argument. A Tribunal can only make a decision on the evidence before it and not on evidence which a party says they know exists but which they do not have or are unable to produce.

13. The [APPELLANT] says that she made a data subject access request to [COMPANY] and that the hospital failed to comply with it resulting in the

Case Number: 6017834/2024 5 of 5 Claimant making a complaint to the [NAME]. This may or may not be the case but what this information does not do is explain how a Tribunal could make a decision based on evidence neither it (nor the Claimant) had available.

14. As the Tribunal explained to the Claimant, her substantive complaints remain intact and the only effect of the Tribunal’s decision is that some of her allegations, pre-December 2023, could not be allegations of disability discrimination but, as they have been pleaded in the alternative, would continue as allegations of race and/or sex discrimination.

15. For all of the above reasons, the Claimant’s application is refused in its entirety. __________________________ Employment Judge Sudra Date: 13th APRIL 2026 Sent to the parties on: 15 April 2026 For the Tribunal Office: [NAME]