United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR MELROSE (APPELLANT'S HUSBAND)


 


JUDGE BYRT QC: This is a preliminary hearing in the course of an appeal from a decision of the Industrial Tribunal sitting at London (South) on 8 January 1996, in which they held that the Applicant, in this case the Appellant, was disqualified from claiming by reason of Section 64(1)(b) of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act in that the normal retirement age for her position as a Matron with the Respondents was 60. She had in fact achieved that age. In addition to that, they dismissed a claim that the Applicant had been discriminated against contrary to Section 6(2)(b) of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

Quite shortly, the facts are that the Appellant was a Matron-Manager at the Respondents retirement home "Eversfield" in Reigate. She had been employed by them since early November 1991, at a time when she was just 57. She was required to retire when she achieved her 60th birthday, which is on 15 October 1994. She says that she had been led to expect that she could stay on there, according to the common policy of the nursing home, until normal retirement age, which would, she says, have been 65.

The Industrial Tribunal came to clear findings that there was no discrimination in relation to the gender of the person who would be appointed matron of this establishment and that the retirement age for a matron, whether it be male/female, would have been the same. Namely that written into the contract which was 60.

Mr Melrose who has argued this matter on behalf of the Respondents has said that there was a vital piece of evidence which undermines the conclusions the Tribunal came to. The evidence was that of Mrs Horsfall and Mrs Ray, who both indicated in evidence that they followed the State old-age pension ruling to the effect that women retire at 60 and men at 65, and that they were not aware of the Sex Discrimination Act at all. In those circumstances that evidence lies ill with the conclusions that the Tribunal came to, to the effect that there was no discrimination between the retirement age of male and female for this particular position.

We think that this is a matter which should be looked at by the Tribunal at a full hearing and they ought to have the Chairman's notes of the evidence given by Mrs Ray and Mrs Horsfall. The issue before the Employment Appeal Tribunal will be as to whether there was clear and unmistakeable evidence by these witnesses to the effect that the normal retirement age for a man would have been 60 had he been appointed matron. That is something which should be clearly discernible from looking at the notes. We do not wish to encourage Mrs Melrose to think that this is going to be an easy matter for her to argue at the full hearing. Their contention amounts to one of perversity in that it is alleged the Tribunal shut their eyes to important evidence that was given. Accordingly, we give leave for this matter to go forward to a full hearing, together with a direction that the relevant parts of the Chairman's notes be abstracted.