Claimant v Jaguar Land Rover Limited — 2020

The preliminary hearing considered time limits and whether strike out or deposit issues should proceed. The judge decided it would be unfair to proceed with the strike out/deposit aspect at that hearing because of the claimant representative's understanding of earlier case management and the absence of particularisation. The respondent could renew such an application. Limitation for the discrimination allegations was postponed to the final hearing because evidence was needed on whether earlier allegations formed part of a continuing act.

The claimant was dismissed with immediate effect on 7 December 2018. Taking account of early conciliation, the unfair dismissal complaint was treated as presented on 19 September 2019, whereas the primary three-month time limit expired on 6 March 2019. The tribunal found that the claimant had access to skilled advice after dismissal and did not accept that his professed ignorance of the time limit was reasonable in the circumstances.

The tribunal accepted that the death of the claimant's mother and his need to travel to Ghana meant it was not reasonably practicable to present the unfair dismissal claim within the primary time limit. However, it found he had received further advice by May 2019, rejected that malaria prevented him from bringing proceedings over summer 2019, and held that a reasonable further period expired one month after his return to the UK, on 23 August 2019. The unfair dismissal claim was therefore out of time and dismissed.