S Ward v Represented by:15 Ms Stobart, Advocate Instructed by: Thompsons Solicitors LLP The Press Association Ltd — 2025

This was a single disability discrimination claim alleging a failure to make reasonable adjustments. The respondent accepted that the claimant was disabled by narcolepsy and cataplexy, and that it had imposed a shift-pattern PCP requiring varied shifts. It was also common ground that a fixed shift pattern, the adjustment sought, had been implemented from 28 August 2024. The dispute before the tribunal was not the merits of the adjustment claim but when time began to run for limitation purposes and whether time should be extended just and equitably.

The tribunal accepted the respondent's argument that section 123 of the Equality Act 2010 applied and that a failure to make reasonable adjustments is not a continuing act for limitation purposes. Applying the approach in Matuszowicz and Morgan, it held that the respondent had carried out an act inconsistent with providing the adjustment when it continued to rota the claimant on varied shifts after the claimant first requested the adjustment, which the tribunal placed in or around January or February 2024. On that footing, the claim should have been lodged, or at least early conciliation commenced, no later than April or May 2024. The tribunal therefore found that the claim presented in January 2025 was out of time by about seven months on the tribunal's generous calculation.

In deciding whether to extend time, the tribunal considered the usual multifactorial exercise, including the length and reasons for delay, the likely cogency of the evidence, prejudice, the claimant's promptness once she knew of the possibility of action, and the steps taken to obtain advice. It accepted that the claimant had used her union and that there had been an admitted administrative mistake in recording the filing deadline, but held that the union's error had no causative effect because the claim was already out of time by the date on which the filing error occurred. The tribunal also found that the claimant had been aware of the issue earlier, that the respondent would face prejudice in defending an old dispute, and that the claimant had not acted promptly enough.

Balancing those factors, the tribunal decided that justice and equity did not favour disapplying the time limit. It therefore held that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the claim and dismissed it without reaching the substantive reasonable-adjustment complaint or making any monetary award.