Deangate Ltd v Hatley and Others (Practice and Procedure): EAT 26 Mar 2015

EAT PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – Application/Claim
Three claimants completed forms of application for fee remission some days after submitting their claims on line. The Respondent argued that the ET should have rejected the claims, as it was obliged to do by rule 11 of its Rules of Procedure since the applications for remission could not be said to ‘accompany’ the claim as the rule required, and that any repeat application would then have been hopelessly out of time. The ET thus had no jurisdiction. The ET considered, and rejected this, since it thought that to send in an application within 7 days of having presented the claim was to accompany the claim with the application. If that was not so, then rule 6 allowed the ET to waive irregularity, and it was just to do so. These conclusions were not accepted on appeal: but a submission made by the Secretary of State, intervening, that to tick, online, a question asking if the claimant intended to apply for remission amounted in the context of the legislation to an unequivocal choice as between paying a fee or applying for remission, and thus was sufficient, was. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed.
Observations made that it must follow from the Secretary of State’s submissions that it is sufficient to amount to accompanying a claim with an application for remission for a claim made by post or to an office to be accompanied with a statement that that is what the claimant is choosing to do.

Langstaff P J
[2015] UKEAT 0389 – 14 – 2603
Bailii
England and Wales

Employment

Updated: 29 December 2021; Ref: scu.544866