In person For the v Miss L Roberts, Legal Executive — 2018

This was a preliminary hearing to decide whether the claimant had presented his unfair dismissal claim in time and whether the tribunal had jurisdiction to hear it. The tribunal found that the claimant was dismissed on 26 May 2018 after a disciplinary process arising from an incident on 4 May 2018. Although the appeal letter later referred to the dismissal as taking effect on 17 July 2018, the claimant accepted that he had known the dismissal date was 26 May 2018, and the tribunal found that the effective date of termination was therefore 26 May 2018.

On that basis, the three-month time limit expired on 26 August 2018. The claimant said he had asked for ACAS early conciliation forms between 21 June 2018 and 17 July 2018, had returned them within 10 days of 17 July, and only learned around 17 August that they had not been received. The tribunal accepted that early conciliation had later restarted on 25 October 2018 and that the ET1 was not presented until 25 December 2018, but it held that this did not extend time because the later conciliation began after the limitation period had already expired.

The tribunal applied section 111 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and considered whether it was not reasonably practicable for the claim to have been presented in time. It found that once the claimant knew around 17 August 2018 that the first ACAS process had failed, it was incumbent on him to resume early conciliation, and that it was reasonably practicable for him to do so before 26 August 2018. The tribunal therefore held that it had no jurisdiction, and the unfair dismissal claim failed.