The claimant submitted a claim form to the employment tribunal. The employment tribunal gave a judgment holding that the claims had been submitted out of time. Oral reasons for the judgment were given at the hearing. Despite the judgment including a note at the end that clearly stated that written reasons would not be provided unless requested within 14 days of the judgment being sent to the parties, the claimant failed to request written reasons within time.
The claimant submitted an email to the EAT seeking to appeal, but did not explain why he had not supplied written reasons as required by the EAT Practice Direction. After time for submitting the appeal had expired the claimant copied the EAT into an email requesting written reasons from the employment tribunal out of time. The employment tribunal refused the request.
The email requesting written reasons out of time was treated as constituting the claimant’s explanation why he had not supplied written reasons for the judgment with the appeal. The only ground of appeal was ‘failure to have regards to material evidence’ without any particulars. An extension of time was granted for the proper institution of the appeal. The respondent appealed that determination. The appeal was allowed. There was no good, let alone exceptional, reasons for departing from the normal approach to time limits in the EAT. The claimant should have read the EAT Practice Direction and given his explanation for failing to provide reasons for the employment tribunal judgment within the time limit for presenting the appeal. The claimant had also failed to comply with paragraph 3.4 of the EAT Practice Direction that required him to make a written application requesting the EAT to exercise its discretion to hear the appeal without written reasons or to request written reasons from the employment tribunal. Such an application would have been doomed to failure because the appeal could not properly be considered without the written reasons of the employment tribunal, nor was there any good reason why the tribunal should be required to provide written reasons out of time in circumstances in which the appellant failed to ask for them within the time limit set out clearly in the judgment and had not identified any proper grounds for appeal despite having heard the oral reasons for the judgment.
[2021] UKEAT 2019-001043
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.668144