Law Weblog

A deadline is a deadline

Saturday 10 November 2007 at 9:36 am | In News | Post Comment

Mr Miller’s employment claim was rejected because it was received nine seconds too late.

Mr Miller wanted to bring a case of unfair dismissal against his employer, so he employed a law student, paying him £120 per hour.

Claims can be lodged online and the student did just that, pressing “send” one second before midnight of the 3 month deadline. It did not reach the tribunal’s servers until eight seconds after midnight. The Employment Tribunal ruled the claim invalid. The Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld the ruling.

The luckless law student could be facing charges for providing unauthorised services. He not qualified at the time of submitting the claim.

Whole case here UKEAT/0486/07