Exclusion of eligible employee

[R. Butler]

An employer has just noticed that an employee was inadvertently not allowed the opportunity to defer at 1/1/00. The plan document states that a partcipant can commence deferrals on 1/1 and 7/1. Since this person was not given the opportunity at either of those dates, is there a problem with letting the employee commence deferrals now?

Obviously if we could allow the employee to defer now the employer is stuck with only a partial year correction under Rev. Proc. 99-31.

Thanks for you help.