Mr Kozik, Legal Consultant For the v Respondent — 2020

Mr Witold Suchanski worked for Montague's Laundries Ltd as a delivery driver from 27 September 2018 until 7 February 2020. At a remote preliminary hearing on 20 January 2021, Employment Judge Bloch QC considered complaints of constructive unfair dismissal under s.104 ERA, unlawful deduction of wages for holiday pay, and breach of contract for notice pay. The tribunal held that all complaints had been presented out of time and struck them out for lack of jurisdiction.

For the holiday pay and notice pay complaints, the tribunal applied the statutory time-limit provisions and referred to Dedman v British Building and Engineering Appliances Ltd. It accepted that the claimant had contacted Polish lawyers in March and April 2020, knew he had some smaller claims, but did not know of the constructive dismissal claim until a Skype consultation with KL Law Ltd on 29 June 2020. The claimant relied on lack of money, unfamiliarity with English law, poor English, and a hospital admission from 11 to 13 July 2020 for shortness of breath, but the tribunal did not find those matters enough to excuse the delay in bringing the holiday pay and notice pay claims.

On the constructive unfair dismissal complaint, the tribunal accepted that the claimant only learned of the potential claim at the 29 June 2020 consultation, but held that it was not then presented within a reasonable period. The tribunal said that the claimant and his adviser needed to act with expedition once the obstacle of ignorance had been removed, and that the short particulars could have been issued promptly and perfected later if necessary. The extracted text contains apparent date slips in paragraph 33, but the overall reasoning is that the delay between late June 2020 and the ET1 presented on 27 July 2020 was not reasonable.