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Industrial Tribunals Northern Ireland Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Industrial Tribunals Northern Ireland Decisions >> Oliver v Belfast City Council [2011] NIIT 00858_11IT (17 October 2011)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/nie/cases/NIIT/2011/00858_11IT.html
Cite as: [2011] NIIT 00858_11IT, [2011] NIIT 858_11IT
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THE INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNALS
CASE REF: 858/11
CLAIMANT: Robert Joseph Oliver
RESPONDENT: Belfast City Council
DECISION ON REVIEW
The decision of the Chairman is that the claimant’s application for a review of the tribunal’s decision in this case should be refused under Regulation 35 (3) of The Industrial Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005 as there is no reasonable prospect of the decision being varied or revoked.
Constitution of Tribunal:
Chairman: Mr Cross
REASONS FOR THE CHAIRMAN’S DECISION
1. In the decision in this case, I explained that there were two areas of regulation which allowed a tribunal to extend the time within which the claimant was allowed to bring a complaint to the tribunal.
2. The first of these concerned claims for unfair dismissal, where, if a claim was to be commenced after the period of three months beginning with the effective date of termination, the time could only be extended to allow such a complaint to be presented, if the tribunal considered that it was not reasonably practicable for the complaint to be presented before the end of that period of three months.
3. In a discrimination claim, such as the claimant's claim for disability discrimination, the tribunal may only consider a complaint which is bought out of time if in all the circumstances of the case, the tribunal considers that it is just and equitable to do so.
4. The claimant's letter dated 9 September seeking this review states that it was only very recently that the claimant was advised that he could bring a complaint in relation to unfair dismissal and disability discrimination. Unfortunately for the claimant it is quite clear that the law only gives the tribunal power to extend the time on the grounds stated above. The fact that the claimant was ignorant of his rights does not give the tribunal automatic power to extend time. The arguments in support of a review of my decision were all advanced at the hearing and I took them into account at that time. There is therefore no new evidence which was not available at that time.
5. In this case the tribunal has already made allowance for the fact that the claimant was in ill health and unable to deal with the handling of possible claims until his recovery. However, on his recovery time must start to run and the three months, from about November 2008, the date of his recovery, had long expired before the claimant bought either of these claims.
6. Dealing first with the unfair dismissal case, the tribunal, whilst being sympathetic to the claimant for the fact that the claimant may not have realised his legal rights until it was too late to do anything about them, is obliged to comply with the wording of the statute, that sets out the claimant’s rights. The claimant’s right to commence this claim is clearly set out with the appropriate time limit and severely curtailed opportunities for a tribunal to extend such time limit. In these circumstances the wording is clear and decided cases in the appeal courts confirm that the tribunal cannot extend the time where the only reason for the delay is that the claimant is unaware of his rights, but otherwise it would have been reasonably practicable to commence a claim for unfair dismissal. See Avon County Council v Haywood Hicks [1978] ICR 646.
7. In the discrimination case the just and equitable extension to the time limit is wider than in unfair dismissal cases. The ignorance of the claimant as to his legal right to bring a discrimination case has from time to time persuaded a tribunal to extend the time for the complaint to be accepted. In this case however the claimant was in contact with a trade union official and with a solicitor about other matters; however despite losing his job and having regard to his serious medical problems at the time of his dismissal which persisted for about 6 months, he failed to deal with the matter in a timely manner and some two years elapsed before he brought the matter up with other advisors and commenced this claim. I do not consider that this is a case where it would be reasonable to exercise my discretion to extend the time limit on the grounds of just and equitable reasons.
8. For these reasons I have to refuse this application for review on the grounds that there is no reasonable prospect of the original decision being varied or revoked.
Chairman:
Date decision recorded in register and issued to parties: