Miss M Deans v Ltd (In Liquidation) — 2021

The claimant was dismissed on 9 March 2020 and, after early conciliation, the limitation period expired on 20 June 2020. An initial ET1 was submitted on 9 June 2020 but was rejected because the respondent name on the claim form did not match the early conciliation certificate. The claimant’s representative emailed the tribunal on 11 June 2020 to explain and correct the respondent name, but the tribunal later stated that the defect had not been rectified because the corrected claim form had not been returned.

The claimant’s representative received the returned form and submitted a recompleted ET1 by recorded delivery on 19 June 2020. It was received on 22 June 2020. Applying the ordinary course of post rule, the tribunal accepted the respondent’s submission that the corrected claim was lodged two days out of time and did not treat the 11 June email as meaning the claim had been lodged in time.

The tribunal found that it was not reasonably practicable for the claimant to present the claim in time. It accepted that the representative was not legally qualified, had acted quickly, had not initially been told expressly that the corrected form itself had to be returned, and was reasonably mistaken about the specific deadline and the consequences of posting when the time limit fell on a Saturday. The tribunal also found the corrected claim was lodged within a reasonable time thereafter and that the short delay had no practical impact on the progress of the claim. It therefore held that it had jurisdiction to hear the unfair dismissal claim.