Ms L Turner Respondent 1: Centrica PLC Respondent 2: British Gas Trading Limited v Respondent — 2021

This was a preliminary hearing about a single detriment complaint under s.47B ERA 1996 arising from the termination of Ms L Turner’s temporary engagement on 19 March 2019. It was common ground that she was a worker, that she was not an employee of British Gas, and that the relevant act for limitation purposes was British Gas telling the agency on 19 March 2019 that it wanted to terminate her engagement.

The claimant said she had raised concerns about attempted charges and that she reasonably but mistakenly thought time ran from 19 April 2019 because she believed she was on one month’s garden leave. On the agreed chronology, Acas was notified on 18 July 2019, after the three-month period had already expired on 18 June 2019, and the claim form was presented on 3 September 2019. The claimant argued that s.207B ERA 1996 extended time, but the tribunal found the claim was already out of time before Acas was notified.

The tribunal held that it was reasonably practicable for the claimant to bring the claim within the initial three-month period and that her belief about the start date was not reasonably held. It relied on the email saying notice was given "with immediate effect", the absence of evidence that she was placed on garden leave, and her own email of 20 March 2019 saying she had been "Given notice with immediate effect." The tribunal also took into account that she was a skilled professional aware of the three-month time limit and could have taken advice earlier.

The claimant’s application to amend the claim form was refused. She had sought to replace the words "with immediate effect" with "of" in the pleaded wording, but the tribunal held this was not a minor clarification and would instead change the claimant’s case on the key issue. The amendment would not have affected the limitation ruling, and the tribunal said the interests of justice and the overriding objective were better served by leaving the claim form as it was. The final result was that the detriment claim was struck out for being out of time and the tribunal did not reach the merits.