Mrs J F MacDonald v Careplus — 2024

Mrs J F MacDonald presented her ET1 on 21 May 2024, pursuing unfair dismissal and failure to pay a redundancy payment. The tribunal recorded that her employment with Careplus ran from 28 November 2022 to 26 April 2024. At the public preliminary hearing on 26 August 2024, the claimant also applied to amend her claim to add breach of contract (notice pay), and that amendment was allowed; that complaint was to proceed separately to a final hearing.

For unfair dismissal, the tribunal applied section 108(1) Employment Rights Act 1996 and noted the limited exceptions in section 108(3). Because the claimant had less than two years' continuous service, she did not qualify to bring an ordinary unfair dismissal complaint unless an automatic unfair dismissal exception applied. The tribunal found that she had not identified any such exception on the paperwork and, when asked at the hearing, she was unable to identify one on the basis of the ACAS material in the bundle.

The unfair dismissal complaint was therefore dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The tribunal's conclusion was that the claimant did not have the necessary length of continuous service and that her dismissal did not fall within any of the automatic unfair dismissal exceptions.

The redundancy payment complaint was also dismissed for lack of jurisdiction under section 155 Employment Rights Act 1996, because the claimant had not been continuously employed for two years ending with the relevant date. The tribunal also recorded that, by letter dated 31 July 2024 and again at the hearing, the claimant said she no longer wished to pursue that complaint.