Mr M Wallace v The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants — 2018

Mr Wallace brought a complaint of unfair dismissal after his employment ended on 30 September 2017. The tribunal accepted that the claim was lodged outside the applicable time limit and that the issue was whether time should be extended under section 111(2) of the Employment Rights Act 1996. It calculated that early conciliation extended the deadline to 29 January 2018, but the claim was not presented until 2 May 2018, 93 days late.

The tribunal found that Mr Wallace knew by September 2017 that he had the right to bring an unfair dismissal claim and knew about the time limit. It accepted that he spent time job searching, relocating to Denmark, dealing with administrative matters linked to that move, and later dealing with redundancy and further job applications, and that he had some limited internet access. It also accepted that he had concerns about possible impact on colleagues and about expenses, but held that none of those matters prevented him from presenting the claim.

Applying the reasonable practicability test under section 111(2), and referring to Porter v Bandridge Ltd and Birmingham Optical Group plc v Johnson, the tribunal concluded that Mr Wallace had the ability to bring the claim within time and had chosen to prioritise other matters instead. It therefore held that it was not satisfied time should be extended, and that it did not have jurisdiction to consider the unfair dismissal complaint.