United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	APPELLANT IN PERSON


 


MR JUSTICE LINDSAY: We have before us a Preliminary hearing in the matter of Mrs E M Armitage and Mr S Robinson against Dr Prasad. Dr Prasad is the Appellant before us today. He is responsible for the running of a residential home for the elderly. Mrs Armitage and Mr Robinson had claims against him in respect of dismissal, breach of contract, and unlawful deductions contrary to the Wages Act.

There was a one day hearing before the Industrial Tribunal sitting at Leeds on 12 July 1996 under the Chairmanship of Mr Simpson and Extended Reasons were promulgated on 29 July 1996. There was oral evidence before the Industrial Tribunal from each of Mrs Armitage and Mr Robinson. The Industrial Tribunal held that there was a redundancy situation but that it was not appropriate that there should be any redundancy payment; that there was a breach of contract in the sense that Mrs Armitage and Mr Robinson were entitled to eight weeks notice and six weeks notice respectively, but that that period of notice had not been given; they found in favour of Mrs Armitage and Mr Robinson on the basis that holiday pay had not been paid and that the failure to pay it represented an unlawful deduction contrary to the Wages Act.

The Respondent, Dr Prasad, appeals to us on two bases as specified in his short and succinct Notice of Appeal. The first ground he says is that the Tribunal's decision was based on misrepresentation of facts by Mr Robinson and Mrs Armitage, and the second ground is that contractual arrangements were for four weeks notice rather than the eight weeks and the six weeks that the Tribunal held.

Nothing could be clearer than that an Industrial Tribunal has to act upon the material put in front of it. If Dr Prasad failed to put evidence in front of the Tribunal then he only has himself to blame. If, on the other hand, he did put the evidence in front of the Industrial Tribunal then it would seem that they have preferred other evidence than his. Either way as it seems to us, no point of law emerges. It is only points of law with which we deal.

Dr Prasad has a complaint in particular in relation to holiday pay, that he did not realise until a late stage that the claim that was being made for holiday pay related back to a period before he owned the residential home and that he could not have foreseen that that was going to be the case put by Mrs Armitage and Mr Robinson. But if he was taken by surprise by the way the matter was going in the Tribunal, then it behoved him to make an application for an adjournment in order that that surprise could be met, but there is no indication of any such application having been made or, of course, refused.

There is a body of evidence, to so describe it, that Dr Prasad would wish now to rely upon, he having made enquiries of the previous owner of the residential home. We cannot simply allow a re-run of the case except on the most limited of grounds and none of which appears to us to be satisfied. If evidence could have been put before the Industrial Tribunal - this would seem to be a description of the material that Dr Prasad now has - that is not a matter which we are entitled to remedy. We have heard Dr Prasad and we find no error of law available to him, accordingly we dismiss the appeal.