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United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Grieves v Nalgo [1993] UKEAT 748_92_0504 (5 April 1993)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/1993/748_92_0504.html
Cite as: [1993] UKEAT 748_92_0504, [1993] UKEAT 748_92_504
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At the Tribunal
HIS HONOUR JUDGE J PEPPITT QC
Ms S R CORBY
MR L D COWAN
Transcript of Proceedings
JUDGMENT
PRELIMINARY HEARING
Revised
APPEARANCES
For the Appellant MR W H GRIEVES
(Father)
JUDGE J PEPPITT QC: This is the preliminary hearing of an appeal by Miss Grieves against a decision of the Newcastle Industrial Tribunal made on the 20th July 1992 and confirmed on review on the 2nd October 1992.
Miss Grieves had been employed by the Northumbrian Police Authority as a Traffic Warden. Whilst undergoing her six month probationary period she was dismissed in circumstances which suggested to her that the Authority might have been in breach of the Sex Discrimination Act. She consulted her Union, NALGO, who supported her claim. Proceedings were brought under that Act against the Northumbrian Police Authority. Following negotiation through ACAS those proceedings were compromised upon terms which included a payment to her of some £2,000. Following that settlement the Solicitors for the Northumbrian Police Authority wrote a letter dated 24th September 1991. The Appellant took the view that this letter contained inaccuracies and sought to persuade NALGO to take up her case either by way of appeal from the determination of the Tribunal, or we think more probably, by way of proceedings in the High Court, on the basis that Miss Grieves had not received justice at the hearing.
NALGO refused to assist her in formulating and pursuing this claim and an application for Legal Aid was refused. Accordingly Miss Grieves instituted proceedings in the same Industrial Tribunal against NALGO alleging that their refusal to assist her was in breach of the union's rules. Her application was dismissed on the 20th July 1992 on the ground that it had been withdrawn. Miss Grieves now appeals to us from that dismissal. Her Father has represented her before us and he, on her behalf, makes two separate but related complaints against NALGO.
First of all he says that the disciplinary code adopted by the Northumbrian Police Authority was formulated by agreement with NALGO and NALGO breached the duty which they owed to the Appellant by permitting to be incorporated in that code a provision which entitled the Authority to dismiss employees in the course of a six month probationary period.
Secondly, says Mr Grieves, NALGO were in breach of duty to the Appellant because they refused to help her following the information which emerged in the course of the statement set out in the letter of 24th September 1991.
There was a pre-hearing assessment of the Appellant's claim against NALGO in the course of which the Chairman told her that were she to proceed she would incur a potential liability for costs and no doubt explained that the claim as formulated was one which was unlikely to succeed and therefore might, in the end, result in a liability for costs. It was this advice, described as a decision by Mr Grieves, which caused Miss Grieves, the Appellant, to sign a document before the Chairman formally withdrawing her appeal. The circumstances in which she did so are set out briefly in the decision on review, which appears at page 7 of the bundle before us.
We are entitled, sitting as the Employment Appeal Tribunal, to interfere only in the event that we can identify an error of law committed in the Tribunal below. We have considered this appeal with some anxiety. We can find no error of law in the proceedings. We agree with the Tribunal that this was a case which had no prospect of success. We think that the advice Miss Grieves was given at the pre-hearing assessment was wise advice; we think she was sensible to have taken it as she did. Accordingly there is in our view no ground which entitles her to appeal. This appeal must be dismissed.