In person For the v Respondent — 2022

The Claimant applied for catering assistant roles in around March 2020, was interviewed on 9 June 2020 and attended a taster session on 10 July 2020. She said she had been led to believe that she had been offered a role and then heard nothing further. The Respondent said the taster session was not an offer of employment and relied on an email dated 29 July 2020 showing a freeze on catering recruitment while staff were being redeployed.

The Tribunal held that the complaint was about an omission by the Respondent, not a continuing act. Applying s123(4) Equality Act 2010, it found either that a decision to freeze recruitment had been taken on or before 29 July 2020, or that the Respondent ought reasonably to have made up its mind by the end of July 2020. On either basis, the primary time limit expired before the Claimant contacted ACAS on 26 December 2020 and before she presented her claim on 8 February 2021.

The Tribunal then considered whether time should be extended for the discrimination claims and whether it was reasonably practicable to bring the whistleblowing claim in time. It accepted the Claimant’s position that she believed the omission only crystallised when she discovered the TRAC status on 29 September 2020, but held that she then waited a further three months without taking advice or contacting ACAS. Applying the authorities it cited, including Robertson, Adedeji, Keeble and Kumari, it found the delay and the Claimant’s reasons weighed against extension.

The Tribunal concluded that it would not be just and equitable to extend time for the Equality Act claims, and that it was reasonably practicable for the whistleblowing complaint to have been brought within the statutory period. It therefore held that it had no jurisdiction to hear any of the claims and dismissed them all. No merits findings were made beyond the time-limit analysis, and no remedy was awarded.