Miss Julie Donohoe v Crombie University of Strathclyde Law Clinic Scotspeed and 1 other — 2021

Miss Julie Donohoe presented claims on 18 January 2021 against Scotspeed and Mr Alistair McGhee, including unfair dismissal, discrimination on the grounds of disability, sex and sexual orientation, and claims for notice pay, holiday pay, arrears of pay and other payments. Scotspeed’s response was rejected on 20 January 2021 because the ET1 did not contain Scotspeed’s ACAS early conciliation certificate number; instead, the certificate number for Mr McGhee had been entered twice. The tribunal later found that the claimant had in fact completed early conciliation for both proposed respondents and had obtained separate certificates before presenting the claim.

On the reconsideration application, the tribunal extended time under Rule 5 because the rejection notice had been sent only in hard copy to the Law Clinic during Covid restrictions, was not discovered until 4 February 2021, and did not explain how to apply for reconsideration. The tribunal held that the claimant’s delay in applying on 18 February 2021 was reasonable in those circumstances.

Applying Rules 12 and 13 of the Employment Tribunals Rules 2013, the tribunal concluded that the original rejection of the Scotspeed claim was correct at the time because the wrong early conciliation number had been inserted, but that the defect had since been rectified. It accepted that the claimant later produced the correct Scotspeed early conciliation certificate, numbered R220513/20/00, which pre-dated presentation of the rejected claim. The claim against Scotspeed was therefore treated as having been presented on 18 February 2021 when the correct certificate number was provided.

The tribunal did not accept the claimant’s evidence that Acas had completed and submitted the ET1 on her behalf. It also noted that the earlier indication at a preliminary hearing that the claim would proceed only against Mr McGhee had been a mistake by the Law Clinic representatives and did not reflect the claimant’s instructions. A further preliminary hearing was to be fixed to deal with the remaining time bar issue in relation to the claims against both respondents.