Mrs B Lees v The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust — 2020

The tribunal held a public preliminary hearing to decide whether Mrs Lees's claims of unfair dismissal, unauthorised deduction from wages, age discrimination and disability discrimination were in time. It found that, after taking the ACAS early conciliation process into account, the deadline for all claims was 9 September 2019, but the ET1 was not presented until 3 February 2020, almost five months late.

On the question of delay, the tribunal accepted that Mrs Lees had a hearing impairment and that her GP letter referred to stress, anxiety and depression, but it was not satisfied that those matters prevented her from presenting the claim form on time. It noted that Mr Stock had completed the form in January 2020 in two or three days, that the information needed for the ET1 was available in September 2019, and that neither Mrs Lees nor Mr Stock could give a meaningful explanation for why the claim was not submitted within the time limit.

Mrs Lees said she had wanted to reduce her working pattern to three days a week before retirement, but the tribunal recorded that her resignation letter of 25 April 2019 said she wished to retire and gave 9 May 2019 as her last day. No later correspondence withdrawing that resignation was produced. The tribunal concluded that the unfair dismissal and wages claims were not shown to be out of time because it was not reasonably practicable to present them within the 3-month limit, and that it would not be just and equitable to extend time for the discrimination claims. All claims were dismissed for want of jurisdiction.