An appeal from the Employment Tribunal’s judgment, which significantly extended time for the presentation of the claim form, would be allowed and the matter remitted to a differently constituted tribunal for determination of all aspects of the question of whether it is just and equitable to extend time for the presentation of the Claimant’s claims of race discrimination until the date on which he presented his claim form.
The events giving rise to the Claimant’s claims had taken place, respectively, in January 2018 (at the latest) and in February 2018. His claim form was presented in June 2019. The EAT held that, having found that the Claimant had been genuinely ignorant of his legal rights, the Tribunal had erred in failing to have: (1) considered whether such ignorance had been reasonable at all material times and, if so, to have identified the facts and matters which informed that conclusion; and (2) assessed the relative weight to be given to all relevant factors, including the prejudice sustained by the Respondent, arising from its destruction (prior to the presentation of the claim form) of relevant documentation in accordance with its policy. The omission of one significant consideration (the reasonableness of the Claimant’s ignorance) from the balance inevitably rendered the Tribunal’s overarching conclusion perverse. In any event, the Tribunal’s analysis of the prejudice sustained by the Respondent had been flawed and its conclusions on that issue were not Meek-compliant.
[2021] UKEAT 0211 – 20 – 2801
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 21 June 2021; Ref: scu.663121
