A recent ruling by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) serves as a vital wake-up call for anyone balancing a legal battle with mental health struggles.
Facts:
The claimant, an Employee Relations/HR Adviser, was employed by the respondent from April 2017 until September 2021. During her tenure, she initiated two legal claims: the first in May 2020, alleging direct racial discrimination, failure to make reasonable adjustments, and victimisation; and a second in March 2021 for unfair dismissal and redundancy payments, based on the contention that her role had fundamentally changed. After her employment ended in September 2021, she transitioned to new roles, eventually working for the Hereford and Worcestershire Integrated Care Board (ICB) in April 2023. Her second claim was struck out by an Employment Tribunal (ET) in April 2023, with written reasons for that decision communicated to her on 7 September 2023.
On that same day, the claimant attended a preliminary hearing for her first claim, where her request for a postponement was denied. This period coincided with a severe flare-up of the claimant’s symptoms of chronic anxiety and depression, for which she was medically signed off from work and prescribed medication. Despite her mental ill-health, the liability hearing for the first claim proceeded between 11 and 20 September 2023.
On the final two days of the hearing, the original ET orally dismissed all her complaints and subsequently ordered her to pay £20,000 in costs. Following the proceedings, she returned to work toward the end of September, but medical evidence indicated that her mental health had since deteriorated, causing “brain fog” and difficulty in managing deadlines.
The claimant attempted to appeal the strike-out judgement of her second claim just before the 19 October 2023 deadline. Facing technical difficulties with the electronic “CE-File” system and in a state of panic, she had initially emailed the wrong Tribunal office. She corrected the error by emailing the EAT the following day, but failed to include a copy of the strike-out judgement itself. This minor document omission was rectified on 24 October, resulting in her appeal being properly instituted five days late. Meanwhile, she successfully lodged a timely appeal against the liability judgement of her first claim in November 2023, but did not include grounds challenging the £20,000 costs order at that time.
It was not until February 2025, following a hearing at which a judge noted that her costs appeal was missing, that the claimant finally lodged a formal appeal against the costs judgement. This third appeal was filed 461 days past the original deadline. Consequently, the Registrar refused to grant extensions for both the five-day delay regarding the second claim and the 461-day delay regarding the costs order. The claimant subsequently appealed these refusals.
Decision:
The High Court granted an extension for one appeal while refusing it for the second. The Judge effectively balanced the claimant’s mental health struggles against the legal requirement for finality and strict adherence to deadlines. Indeed, the first failure, which was 5 days late, fell within the “minor error” under the new 2023 EAT Rules. However, unlike the first delay, the Judge found no “good excuse” for a delay of over a year. He noted that the claimant had been able to file a timely appeal against the liability judgement during the same period, proving that she was capable of meeting deadlines when she focused on them.
Implications:
This case serves as a warning that, while the EAT will make reasonable adjustments for litigants with mental health conditions—especially for minor technical slips—it will not allow mental health to be used as a justification for extremely long delays or for any general failure to understand the rules of the Court. The case clarifies exactly how much “grace” courts will be willing to give when anxiety, depression, or “brain fog” lead to missed deadlines.
In the past, missing a single document (such as a copy of the judgement) when filing an appeal could result in the entire case being thrown out. However, this ruling highlights a crucial update to EAT Rule 37(5) and that ‘minor errors’, if fixed quickly, are likely to result in the granting of an extension.
