Mr J Singh v William Hill Organization Limited — 2019

The claimant did not attend the hearing and gave no explanation. The tribunal proceeded in his absence under rule 47 after unsuccessful attempts to contact him by telephone. On the Working Time Regulations complaint, the tribunal treated the resignation date as no later than 10 January 2018 and held that, even after adding the 25-day ACAS early conciliation extension, the latest presentation date was 4 May 2018. The claim form was not presented until 13 May 2018, so the complaint was out of time.

The tribunal rejected the claimant's assertion that he had been misled about time limits by ACAS because there was no evidence to support it, and it held that he had not shown that it was not reasonably practicable to present the complaint in time. The Working Time Regulations claim was therefore dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The claimant had also sought to amend the claim form to add an unfair dismissal complaint, but the tribunal refused that application because it was a substantial new claim, made after further delay, and would itself have been out of time; the tribunal relied on the guidance in Abercrombie v Arger HEA Rangemaster and Selkent Bus Company v Moore in refusing permission to amend.