United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

BAILII case number: [1995] UKEAT 393_95_1909

Appeal No. EAT/393/95

EMPOLYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL

58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

At the Tribunal

On 19th September 1995

THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE TUCKER

MRS R CHAPMAN

MRS E HART

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MR J RAVENHALL          APPELLANT

GROSVENOR CLUBS LTD          RESPONDENTS

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Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING

Revised


 


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APPEARANCES

For the Appellant THE APPELLANT

APPEARING IN PERSON


 


MR JUSTICE TUCKER: This is a preliminary hearing ex-parte of an appeal by Gavin Ravenhall who was an employee, from a decision of the Industrial Tribunal held at Southampton on 29th November 1994 whereby the Tribunal found that the appellant had not been unfairly dismissed.

The appellant had been employed for over six years by the respondents, Grosvenor Clubs Ltd, as a gaming inspector, otherwise described as a croupier working at their premises known as Soames Sporting Club in Portsmouth. His complaint was that the respondents were trying to get rid of him and that when he complained of harassment they engineered an opportunity to dismiss him on the grounds of insubordination.

The respondent's case was that the appellant was insubordinate. That he failed to turn up for work, and that after a number of warnings and following a disciplinary hearing they dismissed him.

The appellant's notice of appeal contains a number of serious allegations. They are as follows:

"1. the Respondents knowingly committed perjury with their first statement.

2. the Respondents have included falsified company records in their bundle.

3. defamation of character.

4. new evidence not available at the time of the hearing.

5. I have been treated as guilty until proven innocent.

6. the interests of justice require such an appeal."

The appellant referred to many errors in the Tribunal's decisions, and to the difference between the decisions and his notes and recollections of the day. He refers in the formal Notice of Appeal to his belief:

"the tribunal were insufficiently knowledgeable in the operation of a casino and the gaming laws set down in the 1968 Gaming Act, ..."

and to many other matters.

That Notice of Appeal has been supplemented by a skeleton argument which extends the appellant's criticisms to include complaints against his former solicitors, the employment services, the social services, the Adjudication office, the Industrial Tribunal, the Independent Tribunal Service, the Gaming Board of Great Britain, and the law itself. During his submissions to us he enlarged the list to include the officials of the Employment Appeal Tribunal. We have confined ourselves, as we must, to an examination of the grounds of appeal from the decision of the Industrial Tribunal.

In his submissions to us, the appellant said that he had not been allowed time before the Tribunal hearing in order to obtain a medical report which he wished to do. He submitted that the hearing and the notes of the decision were not the same, that some matters had not been recorded. He complained that the respondents had not called one of their witnesses, a Ms Mitchell. He complained that the documentation provided by the respondents was incomplete. He complained that although two days had been set aside for the hearing the second day of it had been abandoned, and he wished to have as he put it his "second day" in order to develop his case. He submitted that he had not been given a chance to prove his innocence or to present his case properly. He even advanced the view that he believed that the respondents had written the Tribunal's decision, and complained that parts of it were wrong. He castigated the Tribunal as being awkward if not incompetent, in particular when they had sent him a letter of apology addressed to "Dear Madam" and the same applied to the officials of the Employment Appeal Tribunal who he accused of harassing him by sending a letter similarly and mistakenly entitled. Of course it is regrettable that that should have occurred.

The Tribunal came to a unanimous decision for which they gave summary reasons. They were followed in due course by extended reasons. The Tribunal's conclusion was summarised in paragraph 8 of those reasons in these terms:

"8 The Tribunal concludes that the Respondent acted as a reasonable employer in its handling of these matters throughout. Indeed it could be said to have been extremely patient in its dealing with an employee who, whilst he was clearly committed to the job in the narrow sense, was in a broader way at times unco-operative and very difficult to manage. The procedure followed by the employer which lead up, after a series of warnings, to the dismissal of the Applicant was, in the view of the Tribunal, fair and proper and on the facts as available to Mrs Mitchell after proper investigation, she was entitled to reach the conclusions that she did. The decision to dismiss fell within the band of responses of a reasonable employer to the situation which confronted it. The application is accordingly dismissed."

In the course of their decision the Tribunal referred to the fact that there had been two complaints before them. The applicant had sought the adjournment to which we have referred in order to obtain a medical report. The Tribunal took the view that the issue of a medical report was of doubtful relevance. If there was a problem in obtaining a report they said:

"... then the applicant could have taken this step himself ...".

In our opinion, the decision of the Tribunal was well reasoned, well set out and was one which they were fully entitled to reach. We can find no error of law upon which an appeal could be based. It should be made plain to the appellant that only if he can show an argument that such an error has occurred can we allow his appeal to go forward to a full hearing. And of course included in an error of law is an allegation of perversity, that is to say, that the Tribunal arrived at a decision which no reasonable Tribunal reasonably instructed could have arrived at.

We regret to say that we are unable to find even an arguable case that any such error of law took place. We wish to make it clear that we are not here in order to conduct and cannot conduct a re-hearing of the arguments which were presented to the Tribunal. We cannot interfere with the decision of the Tribunal unless an error of law can be demonstrated. It would not be sufficient that we might feel that we might have reached a different conclusion (though we are far from saying so). But for the reasons we have sought to outline, no error of law has been demonstrated.

The appellant had at an earlier stage been represented by solicitors who had advised him and who had until a short time before the hearing conducted the application on his behalf. He complains that they withdrew from the case at short notice. It is not for us to enquire in to the reasons for that. The appellant has made his own complaint to the Law Society.

At the conclusion of his submissions to us this morning, it became apparent to us that the appellant was disturbed and upset and we therefore thought it kinder and better not to deliver our decision immediately after we had deliberated upon it, but to give the appellant himself an opportunity to compose himself. We did not wish to cause him further distress. That is the reason why we have delayed giving this decision until the end of our afternoon's hearing. The appellant is not present. We make no criticism of that of course in view of his apparent distress. But for the reasons that we have sought to explain we do not feel able to allow this appeal to go forward to a full hearing and we must therefore dismiss it.