Mr J Rowlands v The Commissioners for His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs — 2024

The claimant's complaint was a disability discrimination claim about alleged failure to make reasonable adjustments in connection with the Tax Specialist Programme. The respondent applied to strike out the claim on the basis that time limit issues meant it had no reasonable prospect of success.

The Tribunal found that there was no obvious date on the material before it when the respondent decided not to make the adjustments. The most likely basis for time starting to run was the end of the period in which the respondent might reasonably have been expected to make the adjustments. The Tribunal considered that the claimant had no reasonable prospect of succeeding in his argument that time did not start to run until May 2023, and concluded that the complaint was presented considerably out of time.

However, the Tribunal did not decide whether it would be just and equitable to consider the complaint out of time. It found it could not say, at this preliminary stage, that the claimant had no reasonable prospect of succeeding on that argument, including his reliance on pursuing the respondent's internal processes before contacting ACAS and presenting the claim. The strike out application was refused, and no deposit order was made.