Legal advice: Employment tribunals

Employment tribunal enforces three-month deadline for claims.

By Martin Donoghue of thePublican.com's team of legal experts from London solicitors Joelson Wilson.​

All employees have rights against and owe duties to their employer. If they believe that any of these rights have been broken, the ultimate remedy is to sue the employer, normally at an employment tribunal. All claims, however, must be started within a certain time period - normally within three months of the act or omission the employee is unhappy about, for example the dismissal or variation of the employment contract.

There are exceptions to these time limit rules. One is where, at the point when the time limit would normally be up, the employee believes, and has reasonable grounds to believe, that an internal disciplinary procedure was still dealing with the matter. For example, where an appeal about a decision to dismiss is ongoing. If the internal disciplinary procedure is still continuing, the time limit to start the employment tribunal claim is extended by a specified time.

Sought compensation​

A senior employee of a restaurant was dismissed. Shortly after his solicitor wrote to his employers, stating that his dismissal had been unfair, that the employee intended to sue, but that for a certain amount of money, he would settle his claim. He did not ask for his old job back or for a different job with his old employer. He just wanted compensation.

As sometimes happens, the negotiations went on and on until the former employer said enough was enough and ended the talks.

The former employee subsequently sued, but the normal time limit of "within three months" had by that time come and gone. Not to worry, thought the former employee, my solicitor's letter was an appeal, so an internal disciplinary procedure was still dealing with my dismissal. Therefore I have extra time to sue.

The employment tribunal did not agree with him, so he appealed. However, the appeal failed. The Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that his letter was not an appeal.

It only asked for money. It did not ask for his old job back, neither did it ask for a different job with the former employer or for any other sort of resolution.

As the letter was not an appeal, and the former employee did not have reasonable grounds to believe that an internal appeal was going on, the extra time to sue had not been available, leaving the former employee too late to sue successfully.

This case presents an obvious lesson for both employee and employer.