Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?
As previously noted it is vital that appeals to the EAT are lodged on time and properly constituted (legal jargon for having all the necessary documents present and correct).
An easy way of getting this wrong is to miss pages out of a document accidentally. A document with a missing page is incomplete and will make the appeal invalid until the omission is fixed. If this happens after the deadline the appeal will be out of time.
There are any number of ways of accidentally missing out a document. Photocopiers are often to blame, particularly those with automated feeder trays that can all too easily swallow two pages instead of one. Sometimes the problem is a mistaken attempt at brevity – leaving out a blank page on the basis that it is unnecessary.
To labour the point: when filing a notice of appeal it is important to be very careful that all the required documents are included and complete. And it is sensible to do this at least a week in advance of the deadline, so you have time to correct any mistake that slips through.
Just had a call from a friend of a friend whose Appeal was treated as not properly submitted because a single page of the written reasons was omitted from the pdf document emailed to the EAT.
I understand the principle,but it is not applied with this rigour in any other jurisdiction.
Indeed.
I think people are particularly thrown by the shift from the ET to the EAT. The ET is relatively relaxed about such things (except when it comes to lodging the claim itself). The EAT is not, particularly when it comes to lodging an appeal.
The other problem is that, to a non-lawyer, it’s not obvious why lodging the notice of appeal is more like lodging a claim, rather than any of the interim steps in tribunal.
So people have seen the ET brush aside short delays in, for example, serving witness statements as irrelevant. Then they are faced with a deadline where being five minutes late or having a single missing page is terribly important. It’s not surprising that they stumble.