United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR R S DRAKE (Solicitor) ELAAS


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): The purpose of this hearing is to determine whether there is an arguable point of law in respect of an appeal against the refusal by an Industrial Tribunal to provide extended reasons for their decision.

The position in law is as follows. Generally this Employment Appeal Tribunal will require extended reasons before it has jurisdiction to consider an appeal. We have a provision in our Practice Direction for parties to appeal against a refusal by an Industrial Tribunal to provide extended reasons, and the purpose of this hearing is to determine whether such an appeal shows an arguable point fit for hearing before a full tribunal.

Mr Jordan represented himself before an Industrial Tribunal in respect of a complaint that he had been constructively dismissed by his former employers, the Commissions of H M Custom & Excise.

I do not need to recite the facts in this matter, but the effective date of termination of his employment was 28th February 1995. At paragraph 2 of the summary reasons they indicated in summary form the principles of law which applied. Having heard the applicant's evidence first, they then ruled that, effectively, there was no case to answer by the employers, and accordingly unanimously dismissed his complaint of constructive dismissal.

That decision was sent to the parties on 18th September 1996, and by 30th September 1996 Mr Jordan had sensibly taken legal advice about his position. What he did through his solicitors was to apply to the Industrial Tribunal for a review of their decision. That was a letter dated 30th September signed by the solicitors and was an application which was made within the 14 day period provided for a review.

By letter dated 15th November 1996, Mr Jordan asked for extended reasons. The period of time for applying for extended reasons is 21 days. This application was well out of time and it was on that basis that the tribunal declined to provide extended reasons.

It seems to us that Mr Jordan has not put forward and did not put forward to the Industrial Tribunal any satisfactory explanation for why the application for extended reasons was made so late and so long after the time had expired. This is a case not only where he would have received in the normal course of events informative literature explaining to him his rights, but a case where he himself took legal advice within a short period of time after the decision had been sent to him. In those circumstances it seems to us that he could not say that neither he nor the agent whom he instructed was aware of the time limit and we can think of no other explanation for the late application to the Industrial Tribunal. In our judgment the Industrial Tribunal were entitled to exercise their discretion in those circumstances to refuse to provide extended reasons.

We are always concerned about cases where a party has not been heard in this Employment Appeal Tribunal or cannot be heard for one technical reason or another, and we have considered whether the justice of the case should require us to take an exceptional course. For the reasons that I have attempted give, we do not think that we can in all justice bend the rules so as to accord Mr Jordan the right of an appeal which others in a similar position to him would not have been granted. Accordingly, we must dismiss appeal.