The case of Beasley v National Grid Electricity
Transmissions is an object lesson in how things can go
pear-shaped when left to the last minute.
As most of you will be aware, claims for unfair dismissal are
subject to a three month time limit. The three months run from,
what is known as, 'the effective date of termination'. That is
usually the employee's last working day but it may be the day on
which a period of notice expires. For claims presented late, there
is a get-out clause if the claimant can satisfy the Tribunal that
it would not have been 'reasonably practicable' to have presented
the claim within the three months.
Mr Beasley was dismissed from his employment. The effective date
of termination of his employment was 7 February 2006. Applying the
three month limit, the deadline for presenting a claim for unfair
dismissal was midnight on 6 May.
Mr Beasley wished to make a claim against his former employers.
He was aware of the relevant time limit. Indeed on 5 May, he had
been advised to get his application in immediately.
Presumably with one eye on the clock, Mr Beasley sat down at his
PC in the evening of 6 May and set about preparing an application
to the Employment Tribunal. He appears to have experienced some
difficulty in drafting the application but he was no doubt relieved
that at 11.44pm he hit the send key to email his application to the
Tribunal.
Unfortunately however, Mr Beasley had misread the email address
for the Tribunal Service and instead of typing 'gsi', he typed in
'qsi'. As the Tribunal subsequently put it, this resulted in his
email being "sent into the ether". At 11.45pm, Mr Beasley received
confirmation that his email had been incorrectly addressed.
Thereafter, no doubt with panic levels rising, he sent a test
message to the Tribunal Service to check that he now had the
correct address. That message was sent at 11.57pm. Mr Beasley then
had another go at emailing off his application. This time the
application was received by the Tribunal Service but 1 minute and
28 seconds after the midnight deadline.
The issue for the Employment Tribunal was whether it would have
been reasonably practicable for Mr Beasley to have presented his
claim for unfair dismissal within the three month time limit. It
held that it would have been. In particular, it held that the
reason that the claim was not made in time was Mr Beasley's failure
to correctly transcribe the Tribunal's email address and that it
would have been reasonably practicable for him to have emailed his
application at 11.57pm rather than sending a test message. On that
basis, the Tribunal dismissed Mr Beasley's application.
Mr Beasley pursued an appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal
('the EAT') but the EAT upheld the Tribunal's decision. In doing
so, it pointed out that there is precedent for such a strict line
being adopted and referred to one case in which an application was
11 minutes late because of a printer breaking down.
Not allowing a claim to proceed because it has been presented
all of 88 seconds late does perhaps seem somewhat harsh - a bit of
a 'rules is rules' approach - particularly when it cannot be said
that Mr Beasley's former employers suffered any prejudice as a
result of the application not being on time. However, the case
illustrates that the 'reasonable practicability' test is not easily
met and that employers, and their advisers, should always check
that the three month time limit has been complied with because, if
it has not, there is every prospect that the application can be
knocked out at an early stage.