Mr. Andrew Hovord v The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs Heard — 2022

The tribunal refused the claimant's application to amend his case to add a race harassment claim. It held the proposed amendment would introduce a new cause of action involving a different protected characteristic and a different factual setting, and that the claim would be out of time. The claimant had raised the December 2020 incident internally, later revived the issue in 2021, but did not seek to add it to the ET1 until February/March 2022; the tribunal found he had not shown it would be just and equitable to extend time.

The claimant's age harassment claim arose from a 1 October 2019 email alleging an ageist remark, said to be that he was "the oldest one on the team". The tribunal accepted that the complaint was presented well outside the three-month limit in s.123 Equality Act 2010 and applied the just and equitable discretion by reference to the length of delay and the reasons for it. It found the claimant's explanations were inconsistent, that he had not discharged the burden of showing why time should be extended, and dismissed the claim.

The victimisation claim failed because the tribunal did not find the claimant had shown a detriment arising from a protected act. It held that the September 2019 conduct issue warning could not found victimisation because the first protected act was the 1 October 2019 complaint, and it was not shown that the later grievance delay or the rejection of unsocial-hours flexitime in October 2020 occurred because of a protected act or perceived protected act. The tribunal also held that, even if those matters had amounted to victimisation, the claim was out of time and no just and equitable extension was warranted.

The claim under s.146(1)(b) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 was dismissed for want of jurisdiction. The tribunal identified the events relied on as the September 2019 email, the October 2020 flexitime decision, the July to September 2019 correspondence about trade union hours, and the length of time taken to deal with the 16 December 2019 grievance. None fell within three months before the ET1 of 23 June 2021, and the claimant did not prove that it was not reasonably practicable to present the complaint in time.