England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
SLADE J
[2017] UKEAT 0210_16_2203

		The Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
		7 June 2018

LORD JUSTICE UNDERHILL (giving the decision of the Court):

1. We have reached a decision in Agarwal. We are not in a position to hand down our full reasons but we believe it is desirable to give the decision itself now, both because the issue may be important in pending cases and because the sooner the parties know whether the proceedings have to continue the better. Our decision is that permission to appeal should be given and the appeal should be allowed, with the result that the case will have to be remitted to the Employment Tribunal for determination of the substantive issues. In short, we believe that the EAT was wrong to hold that the Employment Tribunal had no jurisdiction to determine an issue of contractual interpretation in a claim under part 2 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, for essentially the reasons given by HH Judge Richardson in Weatherilt and by HH Judge Hand QC in Tyne and Wear. We do not believe that the way in which the case was argued in the Employment Tribunal and the EAT meant that it was not open to the Appellant to raise that point in this court. Fuller reasons will follow and be handed down in the usual way.
2. That, of course, also disposes of one of the two issues in Tyne and Wear and means that the time we spent this morning hearing the substantive issue on a provisional basis was not wasted. On that substantive issue we will reserve our decision.

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