The claimant applied for leave to bring an action for race discrimination nine years after the acts complained of. Leave was granted. The respondent said the tribunal should have heard the complaint first before deciding to extend time.
Held: The discretion given was to act as the tribunal thought just and equitable. There was no checklist to be gone through. Each party would be equally disadvantaged by the delay, and the tribunal’s decision was not wrong in law.
Peter Gibson LJ, with whom Sedley and Rix LJJ agreed on this issue, said: ‘Nor do I accept that the ET erred in not going through the matters listed in s. 33(3) of the 1980 Act. Parliament limited the requirement to consider those matters to actions relating to personal injuries and death. Whilst I do not doubt the utility of considering such a checklist (or that in CPR 3.9(1)) in many cases, I do not think it can be elevated into a requirement on the ET to go through such a list in every case, provided of course that no significant factor has been left out of account by the ET in exercising its discretion.’
Judges:
Peter Gibson, Sedley and Rix LJJ
Citations:
Times 30-Jan-2003, Gazette 20-Mar-2003, [2003] EWCA Civ 15, [2003] IRLR 220, [2003] ICR 800
Links:
Statutes:
Race Relations Act 1976 68(1)(a), Limitation Act 1980 33
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Afolabi v Southwark EAT 8-Mar-2002
EAT Race Discrimination – Direct. . .
Cited – Regina v Lancashire County Council ex parte Huddleston CA 1986
The respondent council had failed to allocate a university student grant to the claimant and the principle was directed at the duty of that authority to state clearly the reasons for its refusal and the particular factors that had been taken into . .
Cited by:
Cited – St Albans Girls School and Another v Neary CA 12-Nov-2009
The claimant’s case had been struck out after non-compliance with an order to file further particulars. His appeal was allowed by the EAT, and the School now itself appealed, saying that the employment judge had wrongly had felt obliged to have . .
Cited – Novak v Phones 4U Ltd EAT 14-Sep-2012
EAT Race Discrimination : Continuing Act – The Claimant complained of entries made on Facebook by work colleagues, said to be acts of discrimination on the grounds of disability and nationality. He was found to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Discrimination, Employment
Updated: 23 October 2022; Ref: scu.181189