Yadly Marketing Company Ltd v Secretary of State for the Home Department

Where a statutory period for bringing proceedings ends on a public holiday or another day when the relevant court office is closed throughout the day, the statute is ordinarily construed as permitting filing on the next day when the office is open. This is a rule of statutory construction, rather than an extension of time.

A court may depart from an otherwise unextendable statutory appeal period only in extremely narrow and exceptional circumstances. The litigant must have done all that could reasonably be done to bring and notify the appeal in time. A court official’s erroneous refusal to accept an appeal which the litigant attempted to file within the properly computed period can satisfy that standard.

An employer appealed against a £20,000 civil penalty imposed for employing people without appropriate immigration permission. Under section 17(4) of the Immigration and Nationality Act 2006, its county court appeal had to be brought within 28 days. The apparent final day was a bank holiday Monday, when court offices were closed.

The employer attempted to lodge its appeal at Edmonton County Court on the following day, but court staff wrongly directed it to an immigration tribunal. A second attempt was also refused. The notice was subsequently posted to Canterbury County Court and lodged three days after the bank holiday.

His Honour Judge Murdoch QC struck out and dismissed the appeal as out of time, holding that the statutory period ended on the bank holiday and that no exceptional circumstances justified departure from it. The central issues were how the statutory period should be computed and whether the employer’s attempts to file, coupled with the court official’s error, justified an extension.

1. Appeal allowed. The statutory period did not expire on the bank holiday Monday. The employer was entitled to file its appeal on the next day when the county court office was open. The order striking out and dismissing the appeal was set aside, and the matter was remitted to the county court for consideration by another judge.

2. Where a fixed statutory period ends on a public holiday, or another day on which the relevant public office is closed throughout the day, the general or default rule is that the statute permits the required act to be done on the next day when that office is open. This approach, derived from Pritam Kaur v S Russell & Sons Ltd [1973] 1 QB 336, reflects Parliament’s presumed intention and prevents the statutory period from being curtailed by the closure. It applies subject to the language and context of the particular statute.

3. The rule concerns the construction of the statutory period. It is not an exercise of a power to extend time. CPR 2.8(5), which addresses periods fixed by rules, practice directions, judgments or orders, did not govern the statutory period. Nothing in section 17 of the Immigration and Nationality Act 2006 displaced the general approach.

4. Filing required delivery to the court office itself. Parliament could not be presumed to have intended the deadline to depend upon whether a closed court building happened to possess an accessible letterbox or a door under which documents could be placed. The rule applies only where the office is closed throughout the final day. It does not apply merely because a litigant arrives after normal closing time on a day when the office has been open.

5. Alternatively, the case fell within the extremely narrow jurisdiction to permit a statutory appeal out of time in exceptional circumstances. The employer attempted to file on the next working day and therefore did all it could to appeal within the properly computed period. Its failure resulted from the court official’s erroneous refusal to accept the appeal. Its second personal attempt and subsequent decision to post the notice to a court experienced in these appeals did not disqualify it from relief.

6. It was unnecessary to decide whether section 16 permitted a second objection to a civil penalty. Beatson LJ was nevertheless inclined to conclude that only one objection was permitted, save where an increased penalty required a new penalty notice. Henderson LJ and Arden LJ agreed with the judgment.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal was allowed. The order below was set aside and the matter was remitted to the county court for consideration by another judge: [2016] EWCA Civ 1143.

2. County Court at Canterbury: His Honour Judge Murdoch QC struck out the employer’s notice of appeal as out of time, dismissed the appeal, refused permission to appeal and ordered the employer to pay the Secretary of State’s costs.