Ridley and others v Queen’s Court Business Centre
Ridley and others v HB Kirtley t/a Queen’s Court Business Centre [2024] EWCA Civ 884
Facts
In response to decisions made by the employment tribunal, three claimants expressed their desire to file an appeal. Under the Employment Appeal Tribunal Rules 1993, appeals to the EAT are controlled by the legal framework.
Despite the fact that the claimants in each of the three cases submitted a notice of appeal within the required forty-two days, none of them included a copy of the grounds of resistance, as is required by rule 3(1).
The EAT informed the Claimants about the document that was missing from their possession. After then, each of them sent the document to the EAT, but it was after the time restriction of forty-two days had passed.
They submitted an application to extend the deadline. In every instance, the application was denied by the Registrar, and an additional appeal to a court was also denied. The findings made by the EAT on the extension of time were appealed to the Court of Appeal by the claimants.
Held
The Court determined that the EAT has a wide range of options available to them when it comes to extending time under rule 37(1). In the case of United Arab Emirates v Abdelghafar, Mummery J provided instructions on how to use discretion. According to these rules, time constraints should only be eased in very uncommon and extraordinary situations, and only when there is a valid and justifiable reason for the delay. The Court examined these guidelines and emphasised that they were not inflexible regulations. Their purpose was to provide guidance for exercising a broad range of discretion, rather than to determine the specific outcome of such discretion. Specifically, the Court acknowledged that an error could serve as a valid justification for a postponement.
The Court also determined that the exercise of discretion should acknowledge a significant difference between an appellant who submits a notice of appeal and most of the necessary documents within the specified time frame, and an appellant who fails to submit anything until after the time limit has expired. The appeals were granted and all three cases were sent back to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) to review the possibility of extending the time limit.
Comment
The modifications implemented last year to rule 3(1) (eliminating the need to submit a copy of the claim and response along with the notice of appeal) and rule 37(5) (indicating that if a minor mistake is made in submitting the necessary documents, and the mistake is corrected, then the EAT may extend the time if it deems it fair to do so in all circumstances) were not yet in effect during the relevant period for the appeals in these cases, and therefore did not apply.
