Mr S Hargreaves v Valve Components Ltd (in Administration): 8001098/2025
JUDGMENT
The Judgment of the Employment Tribunal is that it does not have jurisdiction to consider the claimant’s claim under Section 189 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULCRA).REASONS
[1]This was a Preliminary Hearing (PH) to consider the issue of time bar arising from the claimant’s claim presented under section 189 of TULCRA. The PH was fixed to take place by CVP. A notice of the hearing and a CVP link was sent to the claimant.[2]The claimant did not attend the hearing and was nothing before the Tribunal to explain why he was unable to attend. The Clerk of the Tribunal telephoned the claimant, and emailed him, but obtained no response. In the circumstances the Tribunal considered it consistent with the overriding objective in the Employment Tribunal (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2024 (the Rules) to proceed with the PH in the claimant’s absence. It did so, taking into account the material before it in the ET1. Findings in fact[3]The respondent is in administration, but the administrator consented to the continuation of these proceedings in a letter dated 27 February 2025.[4]The ET1 was presented on 6 May 2025. The ET1 stated that the claimant had been dismissed on 15 March 2024. The date of presentation of the ACAA certificate was 23 April 2025 and the date of issue of the certificate was 30 April 2025.[5]There was no information in the ET1 about the date of the last dismissal to which the compliant related, other than the date of the claimant’s dismissal.Consideration
[6]Section 189(5) of TULCR provides as follows in connection with the time limit for presenting a claim under Section 189: (5) An industrial tribunal shall not consider a complaint under this section unless it is presented to the tribunal— (a) before the date on which the last of the dismissals to which the complaint relates takes effect, or (b during the period of three months beginning with that date, or (c) where the tribunal is satisfied that it was not reasonably practicable for the complaint to be presented during the period of three months, within such further period as it considers reasonable.[7]On the face of the information contained in the ET1, the claim is time barred. The onus rests with the claimant to satisfy the Tribunal that it was not reasonably practicable to lodge the claim within the limitation period and that it was lodged within a reasonable period thereafter. There was no evidence before the Tribunal to allow it to exercise its discretion under section 189 (5) and therefore the Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to consider the claim, on the basis that it was lodged out with the statutory time limit. The practical effect of this is that the claim is now at an end.