The Nail and Beauty Zone Ltd

Case Summary

The tribunal considered whether to allow the respondent to amend its reply to add a statutory defence of legitimate aim and proportionality in an indirect discrimination claim, nearly 18 months after being ordered to do so by Employment Judge Evans. The tribunal rejected the amendment application, finding the respondent had failed to comply with the mandatory order through its own default and that allowing the amendment at such a late stage would cause significant prejudice to the claimant. The tribunal also considered preliminary issues regarding ACAS early conciliation scope and redaction of medical documents.

The tribunal rejected the respondent's application to amend its reply to add the statutory defence of legitimate aim and proportionality because the respondent failed to comply with a mandatory order from Employment Judge Evans issued 18 months earlier, the amendment was made at the very late stage of proceedings on day three after the claimant's evidence had concluded, and allowing the amendment would cause significant prejudice to the claimant through delay and the need for additional witness evidence and documents to test the legitimacy of the aims.

Use these claim-type pages to compare this decision with other published tribunal cases, outcome patterns, and visible award data.

• •Whether respondent failed to plead statutory defence of legitimate aim and proportionality in indirect discrimination claim
• •Application to amend reply to add statutory defence at late stage of proceedings
• •Compliance with mandatory order from Employment Judge Evans to set out legitimate aim and proportionate means
• •ACAS early conciliation certificate scope - whether whistleblowing and automatically unfair dismissal covered
• •Redaction of medical documents
• •Strike out application based on ACAS certificate

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS Claimant:Ms. A Brooker Respondent:The Nail and Beauty Zone Limited JUDGMENT having been sent to the parties on 2 December 2025 with a corrected judgment sent to the parties on 4 March 2026 and written reasons of the preliminary applications having been requested in accordance with Rule 62(3) of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013, the following reasons are provided REASONS Discussion about the issues 1. The issues had been determined with some points for the respondent to complete, at a previous hearing. Employment Judge Evans had ordered the respondent to set out by way of an amended reply the statutory defence, what was its legitimate aim and how was this proportionate. A deadline had been given for that. The claimant subsequently decided not to pursue the claim for detriment because of whistleblowing. 2. We were provided with a revised list of issues and we took some time at the outset of the hearing to go through this. In discussing the issues it was made clear to the respondent that they had not pleaded the statutory defence available to them in claims of indirect discrimination, namely that they have a legitimate aim and the treatment complained of was proportionate means of achieving that legitimate aim. 3. At the time it was noted that they had been ordered to do so in mandatory terms by Employment Judge Evans at the preliminary hearing which took place 18 months ago on 17 July 2024. The respondent argued that they had not needed to comply with this mandatory order because in their view the facts referred to in the termination letter set out the legitimate aim and the proportionate means relied on . 4. We originally rejected this argument but on a subsequent application agreed to reconsider our decision if, having reviewed the termination letter, we reached the view that its terms were sufficiently transparent to have put the claimant’s side on notice of the likely defence that will be run, even though it was not ple…