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Can the Employment Appeal Tribunal Refuse to Accept an Appeal that is 1 Hour Late?

on Friday, 19 May 2017.

In J v K and another, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) was asked to exercise its discretion to extend the time limit for submitting a Notice of Appeal where a Notice had been submitted one hour late.

Facts

The Appellant, a teacher, brought proceedings against two Respondents in early 2015 complaining of discrimination and victimisation under the Equality Act 2010. The proceedings were struck out and the Second Respondent subsequently applied for costs. The Employment Tribunal awarded costs of £20,000 against the Appellant.

The Appellant filed a Notice of Appeal against the costs award. He began to send the Notice of Appeal and accompanying documents as one electronic file at 3.55pm on Friday 30 September 2016, however he encountered a problem with the file size as it contained scanned images. He therefore proceeded to split up the file into several different files and sent them to the Tribunal in a series of emails. As a result the transmission was not completed until 5pm.

Appellants to the EAT have 42-days from the date a judgment is made to submit a Notice of Appeal. The deadline for submitting a Notice of Appeal is 4pm on the last day of the 42-day period. In this case the last day of the 42-day period was 30 September 2016. At the time the transmission of the Appellant's series of emails to the EAT was complete, it was therefore one hour past the deadline.

The Appellant argued that he suffered from conditions (including depression, anxiety and stress) that, in conjunction with anxieties that the costs award might result in him losing his home, led to him being in a 'blind panic' prior to the deadline. He also stated that he was confused about whether the deadline was 4pm or midnight.

The EAT was satisfied that its website contains easily accessible guidance for users, which specifically warns that attachments may take a while to load. The EAT therefore held that the Appellant had not left himself enough time to lodge all the necessary documents electronically. The EAT declined to exercise its discretion to extend the time limit where an appeal is submitted out of time as the Appellant had not produced any medical evidence to show that his conditions prevented him from complying with the deadline. The EAT pointed out that such discretion is only to be exercised in rare cases and his appeal was subsequently dismissed.

Best Practice

This case gives a timely reminder that appellants should do all they can to meet court deadlines for submitting documents as these, especially in the absence of exceptional circumstances, can be strictly enforced.


For more information, please contact Nick Murrell in our Employment Law team on 0117 314 5627.

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