Abdul Aziz Yakub v City & Essex Ltd — 2020

The only claim before the tribunal was an unfair dismissal complaint. The claimant's employment ended by resignation on 10 October 2019. His representatives started early conciliation on 6 January 2020, three days before the end of the primary three-month limitation period. ACAS issued the early conciliation certificate on 21 January 2020, but the claimant's representatives did not receive it because of email issues. The tribunal accepted that they were unaware that the certificate had issued and that the claim was filed on 28 February 2020.

The tribunal set out the statutory time-limit rules under section 111 ERA 1996 and section 207B ERA 1996, and applied the 'reasonably practicable' test for extending time. It noted that the test has two limbs: the claimant must show it was not reasonably practicable to present the complaint in time, and any delay after expiry must itself be reasonable. The tribunal also referred to Palmer & An'or v Southend-on-Sea BC and explained that the test is stricter than the discrimination 'just and equitable' test.

On the facts, the tribunal found the representatives should have diarised 6 February 2020 to check whether the early conciliation certificate had been issued, or at latest noticed by 11 February 2020 that it should have been issued. The judge found the failure was simply a failure to diarise and follow up, and that no one had misled the claimant or his representatives. Because the claim could have been lodged within three days of the file being checked, it would have been in time had that check been made.

The tribunal therefore held that it was reasonably practicable to file the claim within the time limit, so the claimant had not satisfied the extension test. The unfair dismissal claim was struck out. For completeness, the tribunal said that if the 'reasonably practicable' hurdle had been met, the period of less than three days after the file review would have been a reasonable further period to present the claim.