Mrs Lorna Burman v Mr Chris Dawson — 2023

The claimant presented her ET1 on 16 September 2022 naming Mr Chris Dawson as respondent. The accompanying Acas Early Conciliation Certificate named Longwall Security Ltd, so the claim was rejected under rule 12(1)(f) on 4 October 2022 because the respondent name on the ET1 did not match the name on the certificate. The claimant then sought clarification and later applied for reconsideration, saying her claim was really against Longwall and that the named individual was the person at the company primarily responsible.

The Employment Judge held that the reconsideration application, although two days late, should be treated as including an application for an extension of time because the claimant was a litigant in person and had not been told in the clarification letter that the reconsideration request was out of time. Applying rule 12(2A) and the approach in Mist v Derby Community Health Services NHS Trust UKEAT/0170/15, the judge found that the name difference was an error and that rejecting the claim would not be in the interests of justice because the respondent would suffer no prejudice beyond the benefit of a limitation argument.

The tribunal therefore granted reconsideration to the extent that the claim was accepted against Longwall Security Limited. The claim against Mr Dawson remained rejected because the claimant had not obtained an Early Conciliation Certificate in relation to her dispute with him. The judgment did not decide the merits of the pleaded unfair dismissal, sex discrimination, or marriage or civil partnership discrimination claims.