List of issues

After you have filed your claim, the ET will ask you and your employer to agree a list of issues. This is a list of the questions that the tribunal will have to decide. Every ET claim has a legal formula. Your list of questions should follow the formula laid down by law for each claim, and then you can add on any other necessary questions you want the ET to answer. When preparing your list of issues, refer to what you have written in your claim and make sure that you reflect this comprehensively in your list.  You and your employer will create a joined list of issues which will be reviewed by the Employment Judge at your first preliminary hearing. See - Presidential Guidance: General Case Management   The Employment Tribunal is not required to stick to the List of Issues decided at a case management preliminary hearing - Mervyn v BW Controls Ltd.[2019] Ms Mervyn, who was not legally represented, claimed she had been dismissed, and insisted she had not resigned. The facts of her case, in the ET1 and her documents clearly showed that she had been constructively dismissed. At the case management preliminary hearing, Ms Mervyn insisted she had not resigned and the issues were defined as involving 'ordinary' unfair dismissal. At the start of the full hearing, the employment judge asked if the issues were as set out in the Case Management Order, and Ms Mervyn said they were, and so that was all the employment tribunal had considered. The Court of Appeal said that in a case such as this where it was clear that the matter was in reality a case of constructive dismissal, then the employment tribunal should have raised that and considered a constructive dismissal case in the alternative to unfair dismissal. Sometimes, in that situation, an adjournment might be necessary. The duty of fairness to both parties requires an employment tribunal to case manage actively and consider amending the List of Issues on its own initiative.

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