Ms H Huggins v Ersmedical and 1 other — 2019

This was a preliminary hearing on 2 December 2019 before Employment Judge Burgher. The claimant did not attend. Her request for a postponement, made by email on 26 November 2019, had already been refused because it was not supported by medical evidence. The tribunal was considering only whether it would be just and equitable to extend time for the Equality Act complaints to proceed.

The claimant had presented her complaints on 24 July 2019. The tribunal recorded that, on the evidence before it, the claimant’s relationship with ERS Transition Ltd ended on 12 December 2018, so any claim relating to that employment should have been brought by 11 March 2019 subject to any ACAS extension. The tribunal also noted that the matters complained of may have predated the transfer to ERS Transition on 5 November 2017, in which case the time limit may have expired on 4 February 2018. Ms Hazel Wild gave evidence that ERS Medical was not a proper respondent and that the people referred to in the claim had transferred to Thames Ambulance Service Limited under TUPE on 12 March 2019.

The tribunal found that the claimant had not given evidence on why time should be extended. Taking the balance of prejudice into account, it held that some of the employees the claimant referred to might no longer be available or might have limited recollection of events. It also concluded that neither respondent was correctly identified as potentially liable on the submissions before it, and that the first respondent could only have been liable for events before 5 November 2017. The tribunal therefore held that the complaints were out of time and refused to extend time on a just and equitable basis.

The judgment states that the claims were dismissed.