Cambridge and Peterborough Foundation NHS Trust v Crouchman: UKEAT/108/09
EAT: Underhill J (President): 8 May 2009
The claimant's internal appeal against his summary dismissal for misconduct was rejected orally and without reasons two days before the expiry of the three-month time limit under section 111(2) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 for making an unfair dismissal claim.
A week after the expiry of the time limit the claimant received written reasons which, although upholding the disciplinary panel's decision to dismiss him, did not endorse its findings on all the issues and, believing that he might now have a viable unfair dismissal claim, he presented a claim form to an employment tribunal on the same day.
At a pre-hearing review an employment judge decided that, given the apparent rejection of his case by the appeal panel as delivered in the oral decision, it had not been reasonably practicable for the claimant to have made his claim before receiving the written reasons which found him guilty only on a single charge, and that the tribunal had jurisdiction to hear the claim.
The employer appealed.
UNDERHILL J (PRESIDENT) held:
For the purposes of section 111(2)(b) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, ignorance of a crucial or fundamental fact was a circumstance rendering it impracticable for a claimant to present a claim where his
ignorance of the fact was reasonable and its discovery genuinely and reasonably changed his belief from believing that he did not have grounds for the claim to believing that he did. The employment judge's
finding that the appeal panel's written reasons had genuinely led the claimant to change from believing he had no grounds for making a claim to belief that he did was unassailable, and, on the evidence, that change in his belief was reasonable.
The appeal was dismissed.
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