Case 1402004/2020 · Employment Tribunal
(1) Mrs K Louden (2) Mrs A Finemore & Ors v Shapwick School Ltd (In Voluntary Creditors Liquidation) PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2021
- Case reference
- 1402004/2020
- Decision date
- 4 January 2021
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Midgley Representation
- Venue
- Bristol
Parties
2 namedClaimant
(1) Mrs K Louden (2) Mrs A Finemore & Ors
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningAt the preliminary hearing on 4 December 2020 at Bristol, Employment Judge Midgley considered claims arising out of the liquidation of Shapwick School Ltd. The underlying claims brought by former employees included redundancy pay, notice pay, holiday pay, unfair dismissal and a protective award under s.188 TULRCA 1992. Mrs Finemore had presented the multiple claim on 21 April 2020 using ACAS certificate MU103463/20/10, and a second certificate, MU103522/20/61, had later been obtained for the remaining claimants after ACAS said the online portal would have to be used in two parts during the Covid-19 period.
The tribunal accepted the respondent's argument that there can only be one ACAS early conciliation certificate in respect of the same matter. Applying Garau and Romero, it held that the later certificate MU103522/20/61 could not create a validly constituted claim in its own right. On that basis, the respondent's strike-out application was dismissed only because the issue was better addressed by amendment, but the tribunal found that the second certificate did not itself confer jurisdiction for the claimants named on it.
The tribunal then allowed amendment to add the claimants on MU103522/20/61. Applying the Selkent and Cocking balancing exercise, and taking account of the 2020 early conciliation rules and the approach in Abercrombie, it found that the new claimants were bringing the same generic claims arising from the same facts, with no evidential prejudice to the respondent. The delay was caused by the ACAS certificate process and not by any knowing or negligent failure by the claimants, and the tribunal said refusing amendment would not be in accordance with the overriding objective.
The tribunal dismissed the claim of Natalie Carson for want of jurisdiction. It recorded that the remaining claims would proceed to a final hearing and listed a telephone case management hearing for 9 March 2021 at 2pm. The judgment did not determine the merits of the underlying redundancy, notice pay, holiday pay, unfair dismissal or protective award claims.
Claims and outcomes
3 findings recordedThis case has mixed outcomes under at least one legal claim type. A tribunal can uphold some allegations and dismiss others under the same legal head, so rows below may represent separate issues or allegation groups from the judgment.
| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other | Respondent's application to strike out the Finemore multiple on the basis that the claimants on ACAS ECC MU103522/20/61 had no valid early conciliation certificate. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Other | Claimants' application to amend the ET1 to include the claimants listed on ACAS ECC MU103522/20/61 was granted. | Upheld | — | — |
| Other | Natalie Carson's claim was dismissed for want of jurisdiction because the tribunal held there was no validly constituted claim for her on the relevant certificate. | Dismissed | — | — |
Legal tests applied
9 references- s.18A ETA 1996
- Rule 12 ET Rules 2013
- Garau
- Romero v Nottingham City Council
- Cocking test
- Selkent Bus Company Ltd v Moore
- Abercrombie v Aga Rangemaster Ltd
- Ladbrokes Racing Ltd v Traynor
- Chapman v Simon
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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