Case 3301105/2024 · Employment Tribunal
Mrs Louise O'Riordan v Stonbury Limited RECORD OF A PUBLIC PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2025
- Case reference
- 3301105/2024
- Decision date
- 17 November 2025
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Alliott Representation
- Venue
- Watford
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mrs Louise O'Riordan
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe preliminary hearing considered amendment and limitation issues. The tribunal found that the claimant's dismissal was part of the same matter as the first Acas early conciliation certificate, so the second certificate did not extend time. On that basis the relevant claims were presented 23 days late.
The tribunal accepted that the claimant had been wrongly advised by DAS Law about the limitation date and acted promptly once told there might be a problem. It also found that, although the claimant had significant health issues, those health issues did not prevent her from presenting the claim in time.
Applying the reasonably practicable test, the tribunal held there was no jurisdiction to hear the whistleblowing, trade union related, breach of contract, unlawful deduction from wages and holiday pay claims, which were dismissed. For the disability discrimination claims, the tribunal exercised its discretion to extend time because it considered that just and equitable.
Claims and outcomes
6 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whistleblowing | The tribunal found no jurisdiction to hear detriment and/or automatically unfair dismissal claims for making a protected disclosure because they were presented late and it was reasonably practicable to present them in time. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Trade union | The tribunal found no jurisdiction to hear detriment and/or automatically unfair dismissal claims for trade union membership or activities because they were presented late and it was reasonably practicable to present them in time. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Breach of contract | The tribunal found no jurisdiction to hear the breach of contract claim because it was presented late and it was reasonably practicable to present it in time. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Unlawful deduction from wages | The tribunal found no jurisdiction to hear the unlawful deduction from wages claim because it was presented late and it was reasonably practicable to present it in time. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Holiday pay | The tribunal found no jurisdiction to hear the holiday pay claim because it was presented late and it was reasonably practicable to present it in time. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Disability discrimination | The tribunal found the disability discrimination claims were not brought in time but extended time to 24 January 2024 because it was just and equitable to do so; the merits were not determined in this preliminary judgment. |
Legal tests applied
8 references- HM Revenue & Customs v Serra Garau
- Compass Group UK and Ireland Limited v Morgan
- Dedman v British Building and Engineering Appliances Limited
- Porter v Bandridge Limited
- Palmer v Southend on Sea Borough Council
- Asda Stores Limited v Kauser
- reasonably practicable
- just and equitable
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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