Employment Law Time Limits

Notes
(a) There is no qualifying period where a woman is dismissed during pregnancy or during ordinary or additional maternity leave periods (S.92(4) ERA).
(b) For these purposes ‘date of dismissal’ means (i) where the employee’s contract of employment was terminated by notice, the date on which the employer’s notice was given, and (ii) in any other case, the EDT – S.238(5) TULRA.
© Starting on 18th birthday if the employee started work before that date.
(d) If during those six months the employee gives a written notice to the employer claiming a redundancy payment or refers a redundancy pay claim to a tribunal or submits a claim for unfair dismissal to a tribunal. The time limit may be extended to one year if during the six months immediately following the first six-month period the employee makes a written claim for payment to the employer or refers a redundancy pay claim to a tribunal or presents an unfair dismissal claim to a tribunal and it appears to the tribunal to be just and equitable that the employee should receive a redundancy payment – S.164 ERA. It may also be extended to one year if the employee dies during the six months following the relevant date – S.176(7) ERA.
(e) At the beginning of the 14th week before the expected week of childbirth.
(f) The Maternity and Parental Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2001 amended Reg 15 to allow parents of children born or placed for adoption up to five years prior to 15 December 1999 to exercise their right to parental leave in respect of those children up until 31 March 2005. A new Reg 13A enables those parents to rely on a period of employment with a previous employer to count towards the one-year qualifying period.
(g) However, an act may be treated as done at the end of a period if it is an act ‘extending over’ that period (S.76(6)(b) SDA/S.68(7)(b) RRA/Sch 3 para 3(3)(b) DDA) – see Barclays Bank plc v Kapur & ors 1991 ICR 208.
(h) There are no expressly stated time limits governing actions under EC law. Time limits will generally be analogous to those under national law, i.e. three months under the EC Equal Treatment Directive (No.76/ 207), and three or six months under Article 141 of the EC Treaty and the EC Equal Pay Directive (No.75/117). In Biggs v Somerset County Council 1996 ICR 364 (Brief 559) a part-time employee brought a claim for unfair dismissal compensation relying on R v Secretary of State for Employment ex parte EOC & anor 1994 IRLR 176 (Brief 513), in which the House of Lords ruled that the qualifying hours thresholds in UK legislation were contrary to Article 141. The Court of Appeal held that the relevant national time limit of three months began to run against the applicant from the date of her dismissal in the 1970s.
(i) According to the House of Lords in Preston & ors v (1) Wolverhampton Healthcare NHS Trust (2) Secretary of State for Health & ors; Fletcher & ors v Midland Bank plc (No.2) 2001 IRLR 237.
(j) No statutory minimum qualifying period, but the rights in question – e.g. payment of statutory notice pay – in practice involve a period of qualifying employment.
(k) In a case where Reg 38(2) applies (complaints by members of the armed forces), the time limit is extended from three months to six months (Reg 30(2)(a)).
(l) Under S.1(2) ERA an employee has a right to receive a written statement of employment particulars within two months of commencing employment. This is the case even if the employment ends before the expiry of the two-month period – S.2(6). By virtue of S.198, however, the right does not apply to an employee if employment continues for less than one month. Accordingly, the right will only apply if the employee has been continuously employed for one month.

* ET can extend time limit where they consider it was ‘not reasonably practicable’ to present the complaint in time.

** ET can extend time limit where they consider it ‘just and equitable’ to do so.

*** No extension of time allowed, except possibly where there has been deliberate fraud by the employer, causing the employee to suffer real injustice in missing the time limit – Grimes v Sutton London Borough Council 1973 ICR 240.

**** ET can extend time limit on ‘not reasonably practicable’ grounds, as above, or where delay was caused by reasonable attempts to pursue internal appeal, etc.

***** Under S.7(5) HRA, the court or tribunal has the discretion to extend the time limit to such longer period as it considers equitable having regard to all the circumstances.