Jason Elliott was called to the Bar of Northern Ireland in 2013 and is the Associate Head of School of Law at Ulster University. As a practising barrister, he has developed a largely civil practice representing individuals, companies and public bodies in litigation. This covers a wide range of areas including personal injuries, wills and employment law. In terms of employment law, he has represented both applicants and respondents in the Industrial Tribunal. At Ulster University, Jason lectures extensively on the civil areas of practise such as Equity and Trusts and delivers employment law lectures for both undergraduate and postgraduate students.
The issue at this preliminary hearing was whether the claim of breach of contract was out of time and whether time should be extended. Both parties agreed this was the issue at the start of the hearing and that there were no other issues. Evidence was heard on the point of time limits and the case was dismissed for want of jurisdiction. The point being that the claimant had a contract as a nurse which ended in October 2019 and then she was re-engaged albeit as a bank nurse. The issue was in relation to the original contract and time ran from October 2019 regardless of the fact that a new contract started straight after. As a result, the claim was out of time.
At the point of the case being dismissed, the claimant directed the Tribunal to an email. The Tribunal, as outlined in the judgment, had at no point previously been directed to it. The content of the email was to relabel the claim to include detriment. The Tribunal outlined that at the point this was raised the decision to dismiss the case had been pronounced publicly. As a result, there was no case in existence at that point.
The Tribunal reconsidered that decision to dismiss to allow for the application to amend to be considered. The argument was to ‘relabel’ the case as one of ‘detriment’. The Tribunal outlined that there was no free-standing jurisdiction of detriment but rather it had to be linked to the likes of protected interest disclosure detriment. No specific cause of detriment was put forward by the claimant. Considering that the case arose from a contract terminated in October 2019 and the claim had been in existence from December 2021 the tribunal outlined that the application to amend would have to be treated in the same way regardless of the strange factual background. Accordingly, the application to amend was dismissed.
Practical Lessons:
The first lesson to be borne in mind is the fact that there is no freestanding jurisdiction relating to ‘detriment’. This was made abundantly clear by the Tribunal. Additionally, on the issue of time limits it was clear that for a breach of contract claim it has to be taken within three months of that breach and later contracts could not be relied upon. Additionally, the claim still has to be brought even where the claimant continues to go through the grievance process which does not put a hold on time running.
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