Mr J Barber v Homebase Rooms Limited — 2020

On 1 September 2020 Employment Judge Brain refused the claimant's application for reconsideration of the judgment of 26 August 2020. The application, treated from the claimant's email of 22 August 2020, was said to be in time, but the tribunal applied Rule 70 of the Employment Tribunals Rules and held that reconsideration was not necessary in the interests of justice because there was no reasonable prospect of the original decision being varied or revoked.

The tribunal held that the breach of contract claim had been presented out of time. It accepted that the contract was terminated without notice on 13 October 2019, that ACAS early conciliation was not commenced until 20 January 2020, and that the claim form was presented on 22 January 2020. On that basis the three-month limit had already expired, and there was no evidence that it had not been reasonably practicable to present the claim in time.

The tribunal also addressed the claimant's alternative case that the termination date was 17 November 2019. It said that this did not assist him because the respondent had agreed an ex gratia payment of £653.75, which together with sums already paid brought him to five weeks' pay. The tribunal's view was that he had recovered the value of the breach of contract claim, so the claim could not be pursued further as a matter of law.

As to the redundancy payment claim, the tribunal stated that it was presented in time because a six-month limitation period applied to redundancy claims, and that a redundancy award had been made accordingly. The judgment does not record any further monetary award in the reconsideration decision itself.