Mrs M Needham v 1850 Business Solutions Ltd — 2023

The tribunal considered the claimant's application dated 2 September 2023 for reconsideration of the judgment signed on 30 August 2023 and sent to the parties on 5 September 2023. The earlier judgment had struck out her unfair dismissal claim after the tribunal had raised that she did not appear to have the two years' continuous service required by section 108 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The claimant did not respond within the time given before the strike-out judgment was signed, so the later email was treated as an application for reconsideration.

Applying rules 70 to 72 of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure, the judge concluded that there was no reasonable prospect of the original decision being varied or revoked. The claimant's email referred to treatment by the respondent in March 2023 which she said was unfair and discriminatory and had triggered her resignation on 3 March 2023, but it did not provide a basis for disapplying the ordinary qualifying period for an unfair dismissal claim.

The tribunal found that section 108 ERA 1996 requires at least two years' continuous employment ending with the effective date of termination, and that there is no discretion to allow a claim to proceed simply because the claimant was close to the threshold. The claimant said she was only 27 days short, or 20 days short if notice was counted, but the tribunal held she was still clearly short of the required period. The judgment also noted that sections 98B to 104G ERA 1996 create limited exceptions to the service requirement, but nothing in the application suggested that any of those exceptions applied. The reconsideration application was therefore refused.