Robin Robison, Employment Consultant For the v Respondent — 2022

The claimant presented her ET1 on 1 March 2022 naming three respondents, but because she gave incorrect ACAS certificate numbers for DIO and Ms Hartley, the claim was accepted only against Ms Bogue. The tribunal therefore decided a preliminary issue: whether the claim against Ms Bogue had been presented in time.

The tribunal held that this was not a continuing act case. It found that the grievance process was handled by the employer and that there was no evidence Ms Bogue had any role in deciding the grievance procedure or outcome. Time therefore ran from 16 December 2020, the date of the last act alleged against Ms Bogue, rather than from the later grievance outcome date of 21 October 2021.

On that basis, the normal three-month time limit would have expired on 15 March 2021, so the claim was already substantially out of time when early conciliation began on 19 January 2022. The tribunal accepted that the claimant did not learn about the tribunal time limits until 29 November 2021 and that she had been following union advice to use the internal grievance process, but it found that those reasons did not justify the delay as against an individual respondent.

The tribunal noted that it would have extended time if the claim had been against the employer, because the claimant was waiting for the internal grievance and appeal process to end. It reached a different conclusion for Ms Bogue personally, however, holding that once the claimant learned of the limitation period she still waited around two months before taking litigation steps against her. The tribunal therefore refused to allow the claim to proceed and no remedy was awarded.