United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

BAILII case number: [1994] UKEAT 616_93_1609

Appeal No. EAT/616/93

EMPOLYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL

58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

At the Tribunal

On 16 September 1994

Before

HIS HONOUR JUDGE J HICKS QC

MR L D COWAN

MRS E HART

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DENNIS JOHN RACE T/A METFRAME SERVICE CO          APPELLANT

R ST ROMAINE          RESPONDENTS

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Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING

Revised


 


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APPEARANCES

For the Appellant MR M WEST

(Personnel Consultant)


 


JUDGE HICKS: On the appeal against the substantive decision of the Industrial Tribunal, Mr West advances two criticisms.

We shall take the second first because it is the shorter, and that is that this was a decision, as appears on the face of the Reasons, in which one of the lay members had a clear view one way, the other lay member a clear view the other way, and the Chairman expresses himself as reaching his concurrence in the majority decision as being somewhat reluctant and compelled by the authorities; in our view that really is a totally irrelevant consideration; the decision of the Industrial Tribunal is the decision of its majority. The only issue is whether there is an arguable case that the majority erred in law in reaching that decision, and the enthusiasm with which any one or more of them may have done so is totally beside the point.

Mr West's other point is that the majority treated the question as being one of what he called a "football score", that is to say they counted up the factors in favour of employment and those in favour of self-employment, that being an issue which they had to address, and inferentially having found nine on one side and eight on the other said that the nine won. In our view, there is really no justification for attributing any such naivety to the Industrial Tribunal. They had been referred to the relevant authorities, they had gone through all the facts in careful and unexceptionable detail, and we find no possible arguable ground for saying that they had not addressed their minds to the correct issue in the correct way, and the appeal against that substantive decision will therefore be dismissed.