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United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Sinclair v Wind Energy Group Ltd [1993] UKEAT 474_90_2406 (24 June 1993)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/1993/474_90_2406.html
Cite as: [1993] UKEAT 474_90_2406
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At the Tribunal
Before
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE WOOD MC (P)
(AS IN CHAMBERS)
Transcript of Proceedings
JUDGMENT
Revised
APPEARANCES
For the Appellant MISS F M SINCLAIR
(In Person)
For the Respondents MR J HARVEY
(Of Counsel)
Mr M Collingwood
Deputy Legal Adviser
Taylor Woodrow Construction Holdings Ltd
345 Ruislip Road
Southall
Middlesex UB1 2QX
MR JUSTICE WOOD (PRESIDENT): This is a hearing in Chambers of interlocutory applications by Miss Sinclair in connection with an appeal which has not yet been heard but which she has launched against a decision of an Industrial Tribunal sitting in London. It heard her applications on the 24th, 25th and 26th June 1990 and gave a decision promulgated on 12th July 1990. She applied for a review, which was refused. Her Notice of Appeal is dated as long ago as the 20th August 1990. The matter came before this Court as a preliminary hearing on 23rd September 1991 when we made an order that it should proceed to a full hearing. We asked the learned Chairman for the Notes of Evidence, and we ordered that documentation and bundles of exhibits be exchanged and prepared for the hearing.
Miss Sinclair later applied for the manuscript notes of the learned Chairman although his notes had been typed out, and there were some 50 pages of them, which were produced. We refused that and made an order for costs against her. Thereafter correspondence took place between Miss Sinclair and the Respondents, Wind Energy Group Ltd. As a result of that correspondence Miss Sinclair has brought proceedings in the High Court seeking an injunction to restrain the Company from taking any further part in these proceedings before us alleging that there was a binding agreement between them. It is no part of my function today, and indeed I deliberately avoid making decision in that respect, however, I have thought it wise to try to deal with these interlocutory applications and to move the appeal forward so that if it is to be heard then further time is not wasted in interlocutory applications. It is that intent I have heard submissions from Miss Sinclair. In so far as I am against her on her submissions I shall say so, without having called upon Mr Harvey or heard him in any way, in so far as I am minded to be in her favour then I have allowed her application. Miss Sinclair, very fairly has agreed, that Mr Harvey should be able to make submissions should the appeal ever come on as a full hearing of appeal. When I use the word "should" I do not presume that there is going to be success or failure either way in the proceedings in the High Court, my language is intended to be entirely neutral in that respect.
I will deal with the four applications made by Miss Sinclair but not necessarily in the same order as those in which she presented them. The first is the application for a Witness Order that Dr Gamble should come before us to give evidence. He was, apparently, at a conference in Glasgow. He was aware that certain discussions or matters were taking place and Miss Sinclair had in fact applied at the hearing before the Industrial Tribunal for a Witness Order in the following circumstances. She understood that Dr Gamble was going to be called by the Company, he was not called by the Company, she applied at the hearing for a Witness Order but was persuaded by the Industrial Tribunal to withdraw that as he was out of the country at the time. In those circumstances it does not seem to me that it would be proper for me to order a Witness Order for Dr Gamble, in any event, his evidence was clearly available at the time. It would refer to incidents which occurred in the history of the matter and in the exercise of my discretion on the usual principles I would refuse that Witness Order.
The second Witness Order she seeks is to the Solicitor acting for the Company, who is an in-house Solicitor. He is Mr Collingwood and his relevance, as Miss Sinclair has informed me, is that during the hearing in front of the Industrial Tribunal Dr Musgrove admitted that certain statements were untrue, to his knowledge, at the date of signing those statements. That seems to me to be a damaging admission in any event. But he told the Tribunal that Mr Collingwood had written them, and Dr Musgrove had signed them, because he thought that his adviser, the Solicitor, Mr Collingwood, knew what he was doing. In fact Mr Collingwood had not attended the hearing. It seems to me that Mr Collingwood's evidence would not be relevant or material; the admission is made, if it is right, by Dr Musgrove that he signed false statements and that is damning in itself. In my judgment it is not necessary or indeed in accordance with ordinary practice that someone's solicitor should be subpoenaed before an Appellate court in those circumstances. That is refused also.
The third matter is that Miss Sinclair asks that evidence of previous cases against the parent Company, Messrs Taylor Woodrow, which dealt with questions of similar matters to those appearing in the present case, should be ordered. She points out, and she has shown in her documentation, that a different tribunal on a different occasion, between different parties, had made that sort of an order. I use that expression because it is difficult to see quite whether it is identical in form to the one suggested. In those proceedings, which were decided after those which are the subject of appeal, Miss Sinclair had failed against a different Respondent, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. She applied to the present Industrial Tribunal for a similar order, that had been refused. She repeated it at the hearing and was told, as the matter had been refused once, it was a matter for appeal, and if it is to be a subject of appeal it would be right for it to be raised at the full appeal and not as an interlocutory matter at this juncture. For that reason I refuse to make an interlocutory order in the terms which she asks.
Finally, there is the question of some new evidence. Here one is applying the Ladd v. Marshall principles to new evidence. Miss Sinclair has kindly made a list of a number of documents which she wishes to place before this Appeal Tribunal at the full hearing of the appeal. She has listed those, a number of them either were in existence or came into her power prior to her application to the Industrial Tribunal for a review, which was in fact refused. Those documents, to some extent were, or should have been, available to her if she had sorted out prior to the hearing. There are also a number of items which came into existence afterwards but which she submits show her capabilities, as indeed they do, and the excellence of her qualifications. It is probably easiest if I annexe this index to the order and indicate those, which subject to any application to the contrary, I would propose should be allowed to be before this Appeal Tribunal at the hearing of the appeal. I would make an order to allow the following documents to be placed before us and any objection can be made at the beginning of the appeal. First of all on page 3 there is the reference from Professor Clayton, then on pages 4 and 5 Miss Sinclair wants a letter from Professor Clayton to her to be before the Tribunal. The value of these matters are a matter for those hearing it but I shall allow pages 4 and 5. Then on pages 8 and 9 there is a further letter from Professor Clayton to Miss Sinclair, and so far as it may assist her, I will allow that two page document to be included. Then, so far as those matters that came into existence after this, I shall allow document 13, which is her PhD certificate, documents 15, 16, 17 and 18, which are certificates of her excellence. Those documents, in my judgment, can properly be put in whether or not they strictly fall within the rules of Ladd v. Marshall I do not concede, but nevertheless, I will let them in.