United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

BAILII case number: [1993] UKEAT 444_93_1811

Appeal No. EAT/444/93

I N T E R N A L

EMPOLYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL

58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

At the Tribunal

On 18th November 1993

Before

THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE MUMMERY (P)

MR D G DAVIES

MR J C RAMSAY

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C A MORRISON          APPELLANT

CHARTERED TRUST PLC          RESPONDENTS

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Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING

Revised


 


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APPEARANCES

For the Appellant C A MORRISON

(In Person)


 


MR JUSTICE MUMMERY (PRESIDENT): This is an appeal by Mr Morrison, a former employee of Chartered Trust plc, for whom he was Branch Manager, against a decision of the Industrial Tribunal sitting at Bedford on the 14th and 15th December 1992.

The Tribunal decided that Mr Morrison was not unfairly dismissed and his claim therefore failed.

He issued a Notice of Appeal. This is a preliminary hearing because of the doubts of the Tribunal as to whether his appeal in truth raises a point of law.

In a lengthy decision the Tribunal set out 30 paragraphs containing findings of fact. It concluded that the reason put forward by Chartered Trust plc was a reason for dismissal based on Mr Morrison's conduct and was, therefore a, potentially fair reason for dismissal. It then considered various other matters relevant to the equity and substantial merits of the case in order to decide whether Chartered Trust had behaved reasonably in treating the reason as a sufficient reason for dismissal. It set out procedures which by Chartered Trust for giving Mr Morrison an opportunity to comply with certain matters relating to underwriting, breaches of which had given rise to their initial actions against him. He was reminded that failure to meet the objectives and guidelines would result in dismissal and, notwithstanding that Mr Morrison continued not to comply with clear instructions which he had been given. The Tribunal concluded on the facts that the actions of Chartered Trust fell within parameters of reasonable responses when they took the decision to dismiss him.

Mr Morrison has appeared in person. He has clarified what was obscure in his Notice of Appeal, namely, his real complaints about this decision. The complaints are these the first is that the Tribunal did not understand the facts of the case. That on its own is not a point of law. It seems to us that his real complaint is that the facts of the case were, in the view of the Tribunal, those asserted by Chartered Trust, not those asserted by Mr Morrison.

He raises a second complaint not mentioned in his grounds of appeal: that the reason why the Industrial Tribunal did not understand the facts of the case was that the hearing took place over two days, 14th and 15th December. It had not finished on the second day, and, therefore, final submissions were dealt with by post. It appears from the decision of the Tribunal that its discussions about the case did not take place until two weeks later, namely, the 30th December. He complains that, by reason of those two weeks delay, the Tribunal was unable to understand the facts of what he says are a complicated case. In our view, there is nothing in this point that can amount to a point of law. It is obvious from the detailed reasons that the Chairman of the Tribunal took full notes of the evidence. There were documents. These were supplemented by written submissions. There is no reasonable prospect of Mr Morrison being able to persuade this Tribunal at a full hearing that a two week delay in the discussions by Members of the Tribunal would have been likely to produce a misunderstanding about the facts of the case.

In those circumstances we are of the view that there is no point of law in this appeal. It will therefore be dismissed on this preliminary hearing.