United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

BAILII case number: [1993] UKEAT 728_93_2110

Appeal No. EAT/728/93

I N T E R N A L

EMPOLYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL

58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

At the Tribunal

On 21 October 1993

Before

HIS HONOUR JUDGE J BULL QC

MR D G DAVIES

MR K M YOUNG CBE

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MR N ANDREW          APPELLANT

BARDON ROADSTONE LTD          RESPONDENTS

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Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING

Revised


 


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APPEARANCES

For the Appellant NO APPEARANCE BY OR

REPRESENTATION ON

BEHALF OF THE

APPELLANT


 


JUDGE BULL QC: This is a Preliminary Hearing of Mr Andrew's appeal to us against a decision of the Industrial Tribunal which sat at Carlisle on 12 July 1993. The Tribunal sat under the Chairmanship of Professor D W Elliott. Full Reasons were sent to the parties on 30 July 1993.

The Appellant has written us a courteous letter explaining that after a long period of unemployment he has recently found a new position and asks us to excuse his attendance but to consider this appeal in his absence and this we have done. We have considered not only his Notice of Appeal and all the documents submitted with it to the Industrial Tribunal but we have scrutinized the Full Reasons which have been set out by that Industrial Tribunal.

The majority of the Tribunal concluded, upon the facts which they found, that the shortcomings of the procedure adopted by the Respondents before them was such as to render it unfair. From this view the Chairman dissented. The Industrial Tribunal were however unanimous in their view that by his conduct the Applicant before them had contributed to his own dismissal to the extent that it completely extinguished his entitlement to any award for compensation. Mr Andrew seeks to appeal against that decision, saying that it was against the weight of the evidence.

The Tribunal enquired into the facts, as is their duty, and we must emphasise that it is not our duty to look at the facts. They heard evidence from Mr Andrew and they have set out with clarity their findings of fact. There was, in our unanimous view, plainly evidence upon which they were entitled to reach their conclusion and we can find in law no reason whatsoever to interfere with what was clearly a careful analysis. Mr Andrew also seeks to impugn the assessment by the Tribunal of the extent to which his own conduct contributed to his own dismissal which they assessed at 100%. He asserts that to his knowledge there has never been a case where after the finding of unfair dismissal no compensation was awarded.

Our joint experience is that there are a number of such cases and we add that comment only because Mr Andrew is unable to attend this Tribunal today.

We are driven to the conclusion that there was here no error of law in the approach adopted by the Industrial Tribunal and most certainly we cannot say that in any of the ways put forward or indeed any other respect which might occur to us that this Tribunal reached a conclusion which no reasonable Tribunal could have reached. For these reasons it seems to us, there having been no appearance before us today, that this Application falls to be dismissed and we so dismiss it.