United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	MR N RANDALL (of Counsel) Messrs Rowley Ashworth Solicitors 247 The Broadway Wimbledon London SW19 1SE


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): The purpose of this hearing is to determine whether the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union ["AEEU"] have an arguable point of law in a prospective appeal against a decision of an Industrial Tribunal which awarded the applicant the sum of £2,000.00 by way of compensation for injury to his feelings following two expulsions from the AEEU.

The Industrial Tribunal's decision seems to us to be in satisfactory form. They set out the facts relating to the two expulsions between paragraphs 2 to 6 of the decision. They direct themselves as to the limited amount of case law of assistance to them in assessing compensation, but direct their attention to the fact, as is accepted they should have done, that they were separating the upset which the applicant suffered as a result of his expulsions from any other upset or anger that he may have felt over other parts of the AEEU's treatment of him.

In paragraph 8 of the decision they set out the principal factors which they relied upon in arriving at their decision on compensation. They said that on any view, even if the applicant was in arrears, which was the reason why he was expelled, he should have received only the three month letter as those arrears did not exist before September 1994. After the apology letter in January 1995, the further letter sent on 1st February should not have been expulsion but another three month letter. Instead, he was expelled again. In any event, as they point out, he had paid in full for this period, and they say that there was a further incorrect suggestion of arrears having always been outstanding in the letter of 6th July from new General Secretary, Nigel Harris. It follows that they were considering a union which was lax in its administration, and the way it approached the question of members' arrears and consequently the way they should deal with disciplinary proceedings against members in that context.

They direct themselves as to the statutory provisions in relation to the award of compensation, and refer to a case which they misnamed and confuse with another authority, but it is plain as Mr Randall has sensibly argued, that in paragraph 10 of their decision they are there referring to the case Day v SOGAT.

The tribunal point out that in that case Mr Day got £500.00 effectively for injury to his feelings, but that was in the context of a much larger award made for other losses which Mr Day had sustained as a result of being excluded from a closed shop union for a period of 16 months. The tribunal continue:

"... Here, there are two expulsions of an applicant who was an exempt member until September 1994, and thereafter paid whatever he was asked to pay and provided a direct debiting mandate so that relevant amounts could be collected. We have also had regard to the second more serious expulsion, and to the fact that the injury to the applicant's feelings was aggravated by the letter of 6 July 1995."

which is a reference to a letter which the applicant received stating that he would:

"... still have been due for expulsion having not paid any contributions from the time you left Lucas in July 1993 until October 1994 ..."

That is plainly incorrect, as the tribunal observed, as should have been obvious from the respondents' own files. So here was a member whose membership was put in jeopardy as a result of incompetence on the part of those who were responsible for dealing with the administration of contributions and the expulsion process.

The Industrial Tribunal awarded £2,000.00.

Mr Randall urges on us that this was a much less serious case than the case of Day; on the other hand, it seems to us, that the Industrial Tribunal were entitled to regard the fact that there were two expulsions and not just one as being a real aggravating feature to this case, as also the letter which was sent on 6th July 1995 which, in our judgment, was calculated to aggravate the injuries to his feeling arising from the expulsion which he had already sustained.

The position, it seems to us, is this: either Mr Randall is right that it is arguable that this award was so manifestly excessive as to amount to a perverse decision, or he is not.

On balance we have come to the conclusion that we cannot say that this award made by the Industrial Tribunal falls into the category of an award which no reasonably sensible tribunal properly directing itself could have arrived at.

We are all of the view that this award was on the high side, but none of us is persuaded that it is arguable that it had crossed the boundary line from being one which was high but within the margin of appreciation, to one which was so high as to constitute a perverse decision.

Accordingly, despite Mr Randall's admirable submissions, we are not prepared to say that there is an arguable point of law, and the appeal will be dismissed.