Practice and Procedure
The claimant was an army reservist and sought to bring claims of race and religious discrimination which occurred during a period of deployment in Cyprus. In order to bring such a claim a claimant is required first to have lodged a service complaint. The period for lodging an ET is extended to 6 months. The claimant failed to bring a claim within the applicable time limit.
Following a hearing in which an extension of time to lodge a claim was refused, the claimant sought reconsideration. By coincidence, the military appeal body considering an appeal against rejection of his service complaint considered the matter in his absence on the same day as the ET hearing.
The claimant forwarded the decision of the appeal body which continued a number of findings which were in his favour. However, the covering letter made no explicit reference to this decision being something which he could not have been able to produce at the date of the original hearing. Many other points in the letter were attempts to relitigate issues on which he had lost at the original hearing.
It was implicit from the ET’s rejection of the reconsideration request that it had not realised that a document was enclosed which could not have been produced at the hearing, not least as the claimant had not received it by that date. This was, the EAT held, entirely understandable.
The matter was remitted to the same ET to begin the reconsideration process afresh.
Judges:
His Honour Judge Martyn Barklem
Citations:
[2021] UKEAT 2019-001089
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 07 June 2022; Ref: scu.677774