United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

BAILII case number: [1995] UKEAT 314_95_2310

Appeal No. EAT/314/95

EMPOLYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL

58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

At the Tribunal

On 23 October 1995

HIS HONOUR JUDGE J HULL QC

MR J H GALBRAITH CB

MR R SANDERSON OBE

---

S S M STEEL WORK LTD          APPELLANTS

(1) P S CRAVEN

(2) D F HADLEY, S HARRISON, D T HARRISON

(3) SARGEANT SHEET METAL LTD (IN LIQUIDATION)           RESPONDENTS

---

Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

Revised


 


---

APPEARANCES

For the Appellants NO APPEARANCE OR REPRESENTATION ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANTS

For the Respondents NO APPEARANCE OR

REPRESENTATION ON

BEHALF OF THE

RESPONDENTS


 


JUDGE HULL QC: This is an appeal to us by the employers from an Industrial Tribunal decision promulgated on 7 February 1995. The Industrial Tribunal sat at Birmingham under the chairmanship of Mr Delgado, with two industrial members, and they had to consider complaints by four former employees.

The decision is a long one occupying 15 pages. They had to consider, among other things, the operation of The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 and they had also to consider the question of fairness or unfairness of dismissal and, indeed, whether there had been a dismissal at all. They considered also a difficult question with regard to amendment in the case of one of the complaints.

Having decided all those matters, they held that the employees and, in particular, the Respondent remaining in this field, Mr Craven, had been unfairly dismissed and made an award on that basis.

The employers appealed. The appeals apparently, with regard to three of the Applicants, were duly compromised; that against Mr Craven continued and it was only at the end of last week, apparently, that the Solicitors acting for Mr Craven learned that the appeal was to be abandoned.

In those circumstances, neither party has attended before us, but those Solicitors for Mr Craven have asked that the matter should remain in the list so that the question of costs could be considered.

We have considered a letter from Mr Craven's Solicitors of 19 October and a letter from the Solicitors for the Appellant of 20 October in which they make various observations. It appears to us that there is no satisfactory reason given for the last-minute abandonment of this appeal. It is, of course, often tactically convenient to keep an appeal going in the hope that negotiations may materialise; in the hope that a favourable offer by the other party may be received; that is not, though, a proper use of litigation.

If an appeal is abandoned without any reasons being given, it is a reasonable inference that there was not much in the appeal and that it was being pursued in a way which was not reasonable and particularly that is that the case when it is abandoned, at the last moment, after the other side has incurred substantial costs. If no explanation is given, which satisfies us that the conduct was reasonable, we are entitled to infer that the conduct of the Appellant in those circumstances was not reasonable. It appears to us all that on the face of it, this is conduct which falls within Rule 34, that is to say this was unreasonable conduct and unnecessary conduct within the rule.

In those circumstances, we think that the Respondent, Mr Craven, should have his costs of the appeal, to be taxed if they are not agreed.