Miss A Sklan v L’Oreal (UK) Limited — 2020

Miss A Sklan was employed by L’Oreal UK as a Deputy Accounts Manager from 9 October 2016 until she resigned on 28 February 2020. In her resignation email of 28 January 2020 she raised discrimination allegations for the first time, including an alleged incident on 26 March 2019 when her area manager allegedly said she would fit in better at another store because the other two consultants there were both Jewish. The tribunal recorded that her ET1 referred to bullying and anti-semitic comments from December 2018 to July 2019, but the claimant confirmed that she only had evidence of one alleged discriminatory incident.

The preliminary hearing was directed to the respondent’s application that the claim was out of time. The tribunal applied section 123 of the Equality Act 2010 and considered whether the complaint was brought within three months of the act complained of, or alternatively whether it was just and equitable to extend time. It found the complaint plainly out of time: on the claimant’s own case, the relevant act was 26 March 2019, so the ordinary limitation period expired on 25 June 2019, and even using 10 July 2019 as the last possible act would still leave the claim about four months late.

The tribunal rejected the claimant’s explanation for delay. It accepted that she had experienced mental health difficulties, but found that she was not completely incapacitated because she attended medical appointments regularly and had internet access. It also found that she was aware of the possibility of taking action in late March 2019, did not contact ACAS until February 2020, and only then acted after seeing a television programme. Applying the factors in Hutchinson v Westward Television Limited, British Coal Corporation v Keeble, and Bexley Community Centre v Robertson, the tribunal held that it was not just and equitable to extend time. The claim was therefore struck out as time-barred and the tribunal had no jurisdiction to deal with it.