Mr H Buttery v Instaloft Ltd — 2024

The claimant's complaint of unfair dismissal was struck out for want of jurisdiction. The claimant did not attend the CVP hearing on 23 April 2024. The tribunal noted that a tribunal staff member called him just after 2:00pm and the call appeared to end when staff identified themselves. The respondent's solicitor said the claimant had emailed at 1:58pm saying he would not be able to attend because of family problems, but the tribunal did not treat that email as an application to postpone the hearing.

On the papers and correspondence, the tribunal found that the claimant had been employed by the respondent from 8 February 2023 until 13 November 2023, so he had less than two years' continuous employment and could not bring an ordinary unfair dismissal claim. The tribunal also noted that the claimant had ticked the whistleblowing box on the claim form, and it had previously invited him to identify any act of whistleblowing. Having reviewed the claim form and later emails, the tribunal found that no protected qualifying disclosure was discernible and that the claimant did not identify any information given to the respondent amounting to a breach of a legal obligation.

The tribunal said the claimant may believe he was unfairly treated, but it had no general discretion to hear an unfair dismissal claim unless the statutory conditions were met. In those circumstances, it held that it had no jurisdiction to hear the complaint and struck it out. No monetary award was made.