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Service at Tribunals by Email

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Where a Claim Form is sent to the tribunal by Email, a Claimant is entitled to assume it will be delivered at the tribunal within about an hour (unless there is an indication that it has not been received, such as a message bounce-back).

Accordingly the Consignia v Sealy 'escape route' is open to a Claimant who sends his Claim Form by Email on the last day for service of the ET1 (as long as s/he allows an hour before midnight, when time expires). The tribunal should then consider if the Claimant has acted reasonably promptly in re-sending the form once s/he realises it has not been received.

In this case, the Claimant Emailed her Claim Form at 4.05pm on Friday (the last day). It was not received at all. She phoned to check it had arrived the following Wednesday or Thursday, and when she discovered it had not arrived, she delivered another Claim Form.

The EAT (Burton P. presiding) upheld the tribunal's decision that it was not reasonably practicable for her to have presented the Claim Form in time, relying as she did on the ordinary course of Email, and she had presented the Claim Form within a reasonable period after expiry of the three-month period.

Initial Electronic Security Systems v Avdic

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