Ms Sharon Jones v Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Local Health Board — 2022

At a CVP preliminary hearing on 12 December 2022, Employment Judge R Brace considered limitation, jurisdiction, amendment, and whether to order a deposit. The claimant contacted ACAS on 14 December 2021, the EC certificate issued on 24 January 2022, and the ET1 was presented on 23 March 2022, so acts before 13 November 2021 were prima facie out of time under s.123 EqA 2010.

The tribunal held that the March and June 2015 allegations were discrete acts rather than a continuing act. It found that the 10 March 2015 dismissal, the alleged instruction that colleagues not speak to the claimant, and the 6 June 2015 re-engagement instead of reinstatement were each out of time. It rejected a just and equitable extension, noting that the claimant did not complain when she returned to work in February 2018, had union assistance, had brought grievances in April 2020 and June 2021, and that the older witnesses had largely retired or left the respondent.

The tribunal reached the same conclusion on the June/July 2019 OSCE assessment and the later Informatics Nurse Specialist trial allegations in late 2019 and January 2021. It treated those matters as distinct acts by different individuals rather than part of a continuing regime, and again refused to extend time. The complaints in C1, C2, D1, D2, E1 to E6, F1, F2 and F3 were therefore struck out for want of jurisdiction.

For the later complaints identified as C3, C4 and D3, the tribunal said the pleaded case on its face suggested a prima facie continuing act up to 26 April 2021, but it declined to make a deposit order because the claims had not yet been clarified by any amendment application. No monetary award was made at this hearing; the £1,000 figure in the papers was only the proposed deposit cap. A further preliminary hearing was listed for 13 February 2023.