Miss S Carter v MAC Cosmetics — 2021

This was a preliminary hearing on the respondent’s time-limit challenge to Miss S Carter’s unfair dismissal claim. The claimant had presented her claim on 22 October 2020. The tribunal found that her employment ended either on 29 May 2020 or 31 May 2020, so the primary three-month time limit expired on 28 August 2020 or 30 August 2020. ACAS early conciliation ran from 25 July 2020 to 25 August 2020, and on the tribunal’s most generous calculation the extended deadline would have been 25 September 2020.

The claimant did not attend the hearing. The tribunal made telephone and email enquiries, then proceeded in her absence under rule 47. It considered her written explanation from 7 December 2020 and her witness statement, which said she believed she could not apply to the tribunal until after the outcome of her internal appeal, and that communication with the respondent had been delayed and fragmented. The tribunal found that she had not shown that it was not reasonably practicable to present the claim in time.

In reaching that conclusion, the tribunal noted that the claimant had contacted ACAS more than two months before expiry of the primary limitation period and considered it implausible that she had not received advice about time limits during that process. It also noted that she had referred to legal advice during the appeal hearing on 5 August 2020. The tribunal held that ignorance of time limits did not assist her on these facts, and that the ongoing internal appeal was not itself a barrier because she actually presented her tribunal claim on 22 October 2020 before the appeal outcome was issued on 16 November 2020. The claim was therefore dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, and the tribunal also said there was no basis to find reasonable prospects of success given the s.111 issue.