EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4101753/2023 Preliminary Hearing at Edinburgh on September 2023 Employment Judge: M A Macleod Loma O’Carroll v Represented by Mr K Bain Union Representative Commissioners for HM Revenue & Customs — 2023

This was a preliminary hearing on whether the claimant's disability discrimination claims were out of time. The claimant had been employed by the respondent since 10 October 2012 as an Inheritance Tax Compliance Investigator. She had raised a formal concern on 7 December 2022 about the way her managers had treated her, including complaints about reasonable adjustments, bullying and harassment, and an incident on 6 December 2022 that she described as extremely upsetting. She notified ACAS on 8 December 2022 and presented her ET1 on 17 February 2023.

The tribunal considered the claimant's further particulars, which identified alleged acts from March 2022 onwards, including communications by managers and HR, the office/home-working dispute, occupational health and GP-related adjustment issues, and material she said she first learned of from a subject access request in January 2023. The respondent argued that acts before 9 September 2022 were out of time and relied on the strict approach to limitation under section 123(1) of the Equality Act 2010, together with the authorities cited in the judgment.

The tribunal held, with some hesitation, that the complaints formed part of the same essential ongoing dispute about whether the claimant could work from home, and therefore were not presented outwith time. It treated the events as part of a continuing course of dealings rather than isolated time-barred incidents, referring to the distinction between a continuing act and a single act with continuing consequences. The judgment also recorded that, if that analysis were wrong, time would in any event be extended on a just and equitable basis because the claimant had been trying to resolve the matter internally, had occupational health involvement, had some matters only come to light after her subject access request, and there was no significant prejudice to the respondent.

The result was that the tribunal had jurisdiction to hear the claimant's disability discrimination claims under sections 15 and 20 of the Equality Act 2010, and the case was allowed to proceed. No merits findings or monetary award were made at this stage.