E.T. Z (WR) EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4111531/20215 Held on March 2022 Employment Judge J M Hendry Mrs L Mackenzie v Nansen Highland — 2022

This was a preliminary hearing on whether Mrs Mackenzie’s unfair dismissal claim was time-barred. The tribunal accepted that she had worked for the respondent as a support worker for about three and a half years and that workplace difficulties had affected her mental health. It also found that she completed an ET1 herself over two evenings while upset and unwell, but that she entered the respondent’s address instead of her own in the claimant contact details section.

The tribunal noted that the claim form was received on 28 September 2021 but was rejected because it did not contain the claimant’s address, which Rule 10 required. The tribunal was satisfied that the claimant had not been aware of the rejection because the tribunal’s correspondence went to the respondent’s address, and the respondent did not forward it or otherwise alert her. It accepted that she later discovered the problem when she contacted the tribunal in December and that she had acted promptly once she realised the position.

Applying section 111 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the “not reasonably practicable” test, the tribunal found that the claimant had not shown it was not reasonably practicable to present the claim in time. It considered that the omission of her own address was a substantial and obvious error on a clear form, that she could have checked the form again or asked her husband to review it, and that her belief that the pandemic might explain a delay did not make the defect reasonable. It also referred to Rule 10 of the Employment Tribunals Rules and to Adams v BT Telecommunications, Walls Meat Company Limited v Khan, and Marks and Spencer Plc v Williams-Ryan.

The tribunal therefore held that the claim was out of time and that it had no jurisdiction to hear it. It dismissed the claim. The judgment records no award of compensation or other remedy.