Case 2501592/2020 · Employment Tribunal
Mr R U Ahmed v Newcastle City Council VIDEO PRELIMINARY HEARING Heard: Remotely (by video link) — 2021
- Case reference
- 2501592/2020
- Decision date
- 1 March 2021
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge S Shore Appearances
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mr R U Ahmed
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningMr Ahmed brought a single claim of unfair dismissal against Newcastle City Council. The tribunal found that the effective date of termination was 16 March 2020, that early conciliation ran from 8 June 2020 to 26 June 2020, and that the time limit for presenting the claim expired at midnight on 26 July 2020. It accepted that he tried to submit an ET1 by email on 16 July 2020, which the tribunal rejected, and that he later handed a paper ET1 to a security guard at Kings Court, North Shields on 16 or 17 July 2020, which was not a designated office for presentation of claims.
The tribunal found that the claimant received rejection notices telling him the permitted methods of presentation and, on 22 July 2020, the correct information for lodging a claim. It found that he had the opportunity to submit the claim properly before the time limit expired but did not do so, and that he gave no cogent explanation for failing to use one of the prescribed methods in time. On that basis, the tribunal concluded that it was reasonably practicable for him to present the claim by the deadline.
Because the claim was out of time, the tribunal held that it had no jurisdiction to hear the unfair dismissal complaint and struck it out. It added, in the alternative, that if it had found it was not reasonably practicable to meet the deadline, it would not have considered it reasonable to extend time to 24 August 2020. No compensatory or basic award was made, and the tribunal did not make formal findings on the substantive fairness of the dismissal or on remedy questions such as reinstatement or re-engagement.
Claims and outcomes
1 finding recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal | The tribunal held that the claim was presented out of time under section 111 ERA 1996, that it had been reasonably practicable to present it by midnight on 26 July 2020, and that the tribunal therefore had no jurisdiction to hear it. The judgment records that the claimant accepted the misconduct allegation but says no formal findings were made on the substantive unfair dismissal issues because of the time-bar ruling. | Struck out | — | — |
Legal tests applied
6 references- s.111 ERA 1996
- s.98(4) ERA 1996
- Burchell test
- Iceland Frozen Foods band of reasonable responses
- Taylor v OCS Group Limited
- D'Silva v Manchester Metropolitan University
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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