Mr G Adamson v Royal Mail Group Limited UPON APPLICATION made by a letter dated 17 August 2020 to reconsider the — 2020

Mr Adamson presented an employment tribunal claim on 3 July 2019 against Royal Mail Group Limited and Mr Bolton. The claim was rejected on 12 July 2019 because no ACAS early conciliation certificate number had been provided. He then obtained ACAS material and applied for reconsideration on 15 July 2019, but that application was rejected on 1 August 2019 because the number supplied was not the certificate number required by the rules.

After receiving a letter from the EAT dated 6 August 2020, the claimant made a further reconsideration application out of time on 17 August 2020. The tribunal accepted that application in the interests of justice, taking into account that the claimant was a litigant in person, had already engaged with the process, and had been directed back to the ET by the EAT correspondence. The respondent objected on delay and prejudice grounds, but the tribunal concluded that the rules were complicated and that the claimant had made an error in procedure rather than abandoned the claim.

The tribunal held that the defect causing the original rejection had been remedied because the claimant had obtained the relevant ACAS early conciliation certificate and number. It therefore revoked the rejection decision as against Royal Mail Group Limited and accepted the claim against that respondent only, treating it as presented on 20 August 2019, when the EAT first received a copy of the certificate. The claimant indicated that he no longer wished to pursue the second respondent. The judgment did not decide the merits of the unfair dismissal claim; it left the matter to proceed to a preliminary hearing on jurisdiction once a response was received.