Young v Plymouth City Council [1994] UKEAT 223_94_3108

EAT
Young v Plymouth City Council
[1994] UKEAT 223_94_3108 · 1994-08-31
MR JUSTICE TUCKER: This is a preliminary hearing ex parte of the Appellant's appeal against the decision of the Industrial Tribunal held at Exeter on 25 January of this year. The unanimous decision of the Tribunal also on a preliminary hearing was that the application made on grounds of unfair dismissal, was out of time, and that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to hear it. Accordingly, the application was dismissed.The case was listed for hearing before us today at 10.30 am. Neither party had appeared at that time, but we put the case back to the end of our list in case the parties should attend. We had had a non-committal and uninformative response in writing from the Appellant's representative which did not make it clear whether she did or did not intend to be present. We have asked that telephone calls be made to the telephone numbers which we have of the parties. Messages have been left on their answering machines, but there has been no response to those messages. The time is now 20 to 3 in the afternoon. We are at the end of our list, having disposed of two other matters. Still, no representative from either party has appeared. Accordingly, we propose to deal with the appeal in the absence of the parties or their representatives.The grounds of appeal are set out in a letter from Mrs Stapleton dated 9 March 1994. We observe that that is some weeks after the giving of the decision. Nonetheless, the grounds set out were in effect that the Tribunal misapplied the law in that the final day of Mrs Young's employment was Friday, 13 August 1993, and she was paid for that day. This date is stated on her P.45 even though she was not required to attend work. Moreover, it is suggested that there were difficulties in serving the Originating Application IT1, because of problems with the fax machine and with delays in the post.The decision of the Tribunal was this. That the Applicant received a letter dated 23 July 1993 from her employers giving her three weeks' notice of dismissal by reason of redundancy. That three weeks' notice expired on 12 August 1993. Therefore, it follows by reference to statutory provision that the Originating Application had to be presented by 11 November 1993. The statutory provision is that contained in Section 67 of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978, which provides as follows:
"(1) A complaint may be presented to an Industrial Tribunal against an employer by any person that he was unfairly dismissed by the employer, and in particular
(2) Subject to sub-section 4 'an Industrial Tribunal shall not consider a complaint under this section unless it is presented to the Tribunal before the end of the period of three months beginning with the effective date of termination, or within such further period as the Tribunal considers reasonable in a case where it is satisfied that it was not reasonably practicable for the complaint to be presented before the end of the period of three months".The application was not in fact received at the Central Office of the Industrial Tribunals in Bury St Edmunds until 13 November 1993. On any view that was not before the end of the period of three months beginning with the effective date of termination. It clearly was outside that period, if the date of termination was 12 August, and it was not within that period, even if the date of termination was, as the Appellant now contends, 13 August. But, the Tribunal had that matter before them and they held that the mere fact that the Applicant was paid up to and including 13 August, seems to them to have no bearing on the matter.Was this a case where the Tribunal ought to have considered it reasonable to extend the period? The latter consideration would only apply where the Tribunal is satisfied that it was not reasonably practicable for the complaint to be presented before the end of the period of three months.The Tribunal found that that did not apply to the present case. They found in paragraph 6 of their reasons as follows:-
"For all these reasons we have to take the view firstly, that the application was presented out of time and secondly, that we have not been satisfied that it was not reasonably practicable for the application to be presented within time. Accordingly, it is the unanimous decision of the Tribunal that the application be dismissed having been submitted outside the statutory time limit.
The time limit of three months is a generous one. It has to be strictly complied with. There was no practicable reason, certainly no reasonably practicable reason in our view why it should not have been complied with. The argument that the employment ended on 13 August and not the 12th has no merit. It was one which was considered by the Tribunal and dealt with by them and we see no flaw at all in their approach, either to that question or to the question, whether the time should be extended. Accordingly, this appeal is, in our view unarguable and it is dismissed.