Ms K Krupinska, representative For the v Mrs F Dad, company secretary — 2021

The claimant worked as a housekeeper for the respondent hotel. The ET1 was presented on 18 August 2020, after the employment had ended on the dates stated in the claim form as 31 January 2020, and after an early conciliation period running from 3 July 2020 to 18 July 2020. The reserved judgment addressed a preliminary issue on whether the late claims could be heard, and also dealt with an application to amend the claim to add disability discrimination and automatically unfair dismissal for protected disclosure.

Applying the reasonably practicable test and citing Marks and Spencer plc v Williams-Ryan, Wall's Meat Co Ltd v Khan and the Harvey commentary, the tribunal accepted that it was not reasonably practicable for the claimant to present the claims within the primary three-month limitation period. The judge relied on the claimant's limited English, her use of translation help, her mistaken belief that she had three years to bring a claim because of her experience in Poland, and the evidence that she only obtained meaningful assistance from Ms Krupinska in July 2020.

The tribunal then found that the claims were made within a reasonable period after Ms Krupinska became involved. It held that the unpaid holiday pay and notice pay claims were therefore within jurisdiction, and the case was listed for a later hearing on those claims. By contrast, the claim for statutory sick pay was held to be outside the tribunal's jurisdiction, with the judgment noting that SSP entitlement is ordinarily determined through the statutory scheme rather than by the employment tribunal.

The proposed amendment was refused. The tribunal applied the practical balancing approach described in Abercrombie v Aga Rangemaster and Vaughan v Modality Partnership, and concluded that the proposed disability discrimination and protected-disclosure dismissal claims were weak on the facts and that the prejudice to the respondent from allowing a late amendment outweighed the prejudice to the claimant. No financial award was made in this judgment.