Jason Elliott was called to the Bar of Northern Ireland in 2013 and is the Associate Head of School of Law at Ulster University. As a practising barrister, he has developed a largely civil practice representing individuals, companies and public bodies in litigation. This covers a wide range of areas including personal injuries, wills and employment law. In terms of employment law, he has represented both applicants and respondents in the Industrial Tribunal. At Ulster University, Jason lectures extensively on the civil areas of practise such as Equity and Trusts and delivers employment law lectures for both undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Claim presented out of time as the time for early conciliation not added onto the time allowed to present the claim when early conciliation started before time started to run.
The claimant appealed a Tribunal decision that her unfair dismissal claim was out of time. The claimant was employed as a chief commercial officer. Her employment was terminated on 17th February 2023 but on 13th February 2023 she had commenced early conciliation with ACAS. An EC Certificate was issued on 28th February 2023 and it was on 30th May 2023 that she brought an unfair dismissal claim.
The issue was whether the limitation period was extended by the number of days in the entire early conciliation period or only by the number of days in the early conciliation period after the employment termination date. If it was the former then the claim would be within time whereas the latter would mean the claim was submitted out of time by 3 days.
The Tribunal found that the claim was out of time and that time would not be extended. The EAT held that the statutory wording in Section 207 of the Employment Rights Act was clear and unambiguous. The approach to limitation was that the expiry date was by identifying the date from when limitation started to run and then adding the prescribed limitation period going forwards. In other words, it was only when the time started to run that the extra time as a result of the early conciliation process. Therefore, the fact that it was commenced before the time actually started to run meant that those days did not get added to the time to present the claim. Accordingly, the claim was presented three days after the expiry of the time limit.
The EAT have provided clarity on a technical point arising from early conciliation and the impact it has on time limits. To this end, the extra days to the time limit as a result of early conciliation only arises when the time has actually started to run rather than a set number of days on top of the three months. Therefore, the fact that early conciliation started before the time officially began running (effective date of termination) – it did not include those days and the claim was presented out of time.
You can read the case in full here.
Continue reading
We help hundreds of people like you understand how the latest changes in employment law impact your business.
Please log in to view the full article.
What you'll get:
- Help understand the ramifications of each important case from NI, GB and Europe
- Ensure your organisation's policies and procedures are fully compliant with NI law
- 24/7 access to all the content in the Legal Island Vault for research case law and HR issues
- Receive free preliminary advice on workplace issues from the employment team
Already a subscriber? Log in now or start a free trial
AI Literacy Skills at Work: Safe, Ethical and Effective Use
