Shooter v Dorlux Beds Ltd

An employment tribunal may determine the effective date of termination by relying on the employee’s own evidence and on a date treated as common ground in the pleadings. Its reasons should be read broadly, without applying a fine-tooth comb to identify possible drafting errors. Where the complaint was presented outside the three-month period in Employment Rights Act 1996, permission to appeal will not be granted merely because another possible termination date might have produced a different limitation result. An appeal lies only on a question of law, and permission requires a real prospect of success.

The applicant was dismissed by Dorlux Beds Ltd following a disciplinary hearing concerning missing money. He presented an unfair-dismissal complaint to an employment tribunal, which treated 11 October 2000 as the effective date of termination and found the complaint one day out of time under section 111 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed his appeal at a preliminary hearing. On a renewed application, the applicant argued that the employment tribunal had failed to determine properly the effective date of termination and had given inadequate reasons. The central issue was whether that alleged defect disclosed an arguable error of law with a real prospect of success.

1. Application refused. The renewed application for permission to appeal was hopeless and there was no real prospect of establishing an error of law.
2. The Court approached the employment tribunal’s reasons broadly. It was inappropriate to apply a fine-tooth comb in order to detect possible mistakes in the drafting of the reasons.
3. The tribunal was entitled to proceed on the basis of the applicant’s own evidence. He had stated in two witness statements that his employment was terminated immediately after the disciplinary hearing on 10 October 2000. On that evidence, the complaint was out of time.
4. The tribunal was also entitled to rely on 11 October 2000 because the applicant had given that date in his IT1 and the employer had accepted it in the IT3. The tribunal therefore had a proper factual and legal basis for concluding that the complaint, presented on 11 January 2001, was one day late.
5. Section 111 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 prevented the tribunal from considering the complaint unless it was presented within three months of the effective date of termination, subject to the statutory extension where it was not reasonably practicable to present it in time. There was no appeal against the tribunal’s finding that presentation in time had been reasonably practicable.
6. Section 97(1)(b) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 defined the effective date of termination, in a case where the contract was terminated without notice, as the date on which termination took effect. Nothing in the material disclosed an error of law in the tribunal’s treatment of that date.

The order was: application refused.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): renewed application for permission to appeal refused.
• Employment Appeal Tribunal: appeal dismissed at a preliminary hearing.
• Employment Tribunal: complaint of unfair dismissal dismissed for want of jurisdiction because it was presented out of time.