Case 1308027/2019 · Employment Tribunal
In person v Respondent — 2019
- Case reference
- 1308027/2019
- Decision date
- 25 August 2019
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Broughton Appearances
- Venue
- Birmingham
Parties
1 namedClaimant
In person
Respondent
- —
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningMs Serafim brought a claim of constructive unfair dismissal. The tribunal recorded that her effective date of termination was 30 May 2019 and that Early Conciliation began on 2 September 2019, five days outside the primary time limit. EC ended on 16 October 2019 and the claim was issued on 26 October 2019, a further 10 days later.
The tribunal accepted that the claimant did not know her UK employment rights or the relevant time limits, and that after leaving the respondent she immediately started new work on similar pay while focusing on long shifts and caring for her son. It also accepted her evidence that she was not initially intending to bring a claim until an issue arose about her reference.
Applying section 111 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the tribunal held that lack of awareness of rights only excuses delay if that lack of awareness is reasonable. It found that the claimant was able to research her position sooner, and that once she learned about ACAS on 25 August 2019 she still had time to contact them before the deadline but did not do so until after the weekend.
The tribunal concluded that it was reasonably practicable for Early Conciliation to have been started in time, and in any event that the further 10-day delay after EC ended was not reasonable. It therefore had no discretion to extend time and dismissed the claim.
Claims and outcomes
1 finding recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Constructive dismissal | Claim pleaded as constructive unfair dismissal. It was dismissed because it was presented out of time and the tribunal found it had not been shown to be reasonably practicable to present in time, nor was the further delay reasonable. | Dismissed | — | — |
Legal tests applied
3 references- s.111 Employment Rights Act 1996
- reasonably practicable test
- reasonable further delay test
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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