Peacock v Murreyfield Lodge Ltd

An early-conciliation certificate is not invalid merely because the respondent’s address differs from its registered office. The early-conciliation scheme requires sufficient information to permit contact with the prospective respondent. It does not impose a technical requirement that a limited company’s registered office be supplied.

Under Rule 12 of the 2013 ET Rules, tribunal staff must refer a claim form to an Employment Judge where the respondent’s name differs from that on the early-conciliation certificate. The rule does not require referral merely because the addresses differ. In any event, an address at which business concerning the respondent is carried on, and at which ACAS successfully contacts it, complies with the early-conciliation requirements.

The Claimant was dismissed on 6 April 2018. She commenced early conciliation twice. ACAS issued certificates on 18 and 25 June 2018. Her solicitors, unaware of the first process, presented an unfair-dismissal claim on 23 July 2018.

The Employment Tribunal at Leeds held that the first certificate governed the statutory extension of time. The claim was therefore five days late and was dismissed for want of jurisdiction. The appeal concerned a point not addressed by the Tribunal: whether the first certificate was invalid because it recorded an address which was neither the Respondent’s registered office nor its own place of business.

The central issue was whether that address invalidated the first early-conciliation certificate and thereby allowed the later certificate to govern time.

1. Appeal allowed only to identify an immaterial error; the Tribunal’s dismissal remained effective. The Tribunal erred in law by failing to address the pleaded argument that the first early-conciliation certificate was invalid because of the Respondent’s address. Applying Jafri v Lincoln College [2014] EWCA Civ 449, however, there was only one answer which the Tribunal could lawfully have reached. A remittal was unnecessary.

2. Rule 12(1)(f) of the 2013 ET Rules is directed to tribunal staff. It requires referral to an Employment Judge where the respondent’s name on the claim form differs from that on the relevant certificate. It does not require staff to refer a claim because an address differs. Rule 12(2A), which permits an Employment Judge to consider a minor error in a name or address and the interests of justice, did not justify reading “address” into Rule 12(1)(f).

3. Alternatively, the first certificate was valid on the merits. The early-conciliation provisions require a practical and non-technical approach. Their purpose is to provide an opportunity for conciliation, not to create satellite litigation. There was no requirement to provide a company’s registered-office address. The address supplied was one at which the Claimant had met the Respondent’s director, and ACAS successfully contacted the Respondent there. It was accordingly an address compliant with the Employment Tribunals (Early Conciliation: Exemption and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2014.

4. The first certificate was valid. Consequently, the later certificate did not govern the limitation calculation, and the unfair-dismissal claim was out of time.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: held that the Tribunal had omitted a live issue, but determined it without remittal and upheld the conclusion that the claim was out of time.
• Employment Tribunal, Leeds: Employment Judge Cox dismissed the unfair-dismissal claim for want of jurisdiction. Reasons were sent on 14 January 2019.