United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	NO APPEARANCE BY OR REPRESENTATION ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): Miss Lowerson wishes to further pursue a complaint against her former employers. She had previously made a complaint which was adjudicated upon in March 1994, that she had been unfairly dismissed from her employment by the Post Office.

That decision was contained in extended form reasons and sent to the parties on about 23 December 1994. By that decision they concluded that they did not have jurisdiction to hear the Applicant's claims, either for a redundancy payment, or unfair dismissal, because of the time limit provisions.

She presented a further complaint to an Industrial Tribunal and it was the contention of the employers that the matters which she was complaining about had been, or could have been, already considered by the original Industrial Tribunal.

In paragraph 9 of her IT1 she complains of "unfair dismissal whilst under a medical certificate". That was an application in relation to an unfair dismissal from employment which had ceased many years ago, that is on 24 March 1994, when she was medically retired. That was exactly the same complaint as she had previously made. It occurred to us that it might be that Miss Lowerson, who has not appeared before us, but whose Notice of Appeal we have considered with care, might have been suggesting that she now wished to complain that she had been injured by the Post Office, by reason of the Post Office's breach of contract and that she had a complaint which she could bring against the Post Office under the extended jurisdiction provisions which apply to Industrial Tribunals enabling them to determine whether breaches of contract have occurred and, if so, what damage has been sustained.

If that were the point which she is making, or seeking to make, we have to say that it would not be one which could succeed in front of an Industrial Tribunal, since the statutory provisions which extend the Industrial Tribunal's jurisdiction do not cover claims for damages for personal injuries, even where the basis for the claim is said to be the employer's breach of his contractual obligations to provide safe facilities and equipment at work. That is expressly excluded because, no doubt, it was thought that the Industrial Tribunals did not have the expertise to deal with personal injury cases, which are traditionally dealt with, either in the County Court or the High Court, depending on the amount of damage where the adjudications are made by people who have considerable experience in assessing compensation in that field.

Accordingly, it seems to us that either the complaint which she was making had already been ruled out of order by the Industrial Tribunal, or it was a complaint which fell outside the Tribunal's competence. Accordingly, the decision of the Industrial Tribunal to dismiss the present application, was entirely correct.

The only remedy for the Applicant is for her to appeal against the decision of 21 December, which she informed us she was doing. The appeal should, of course, be to the Employment Appeal Tribunal. That appeal is well out of time because we have a period of 42 days for the bringing of an appeal against a decision and it seems to us that time should not be extended in this case as no good reason has been put forward for us to do so.

In these circumstances, we regret that this appeal must be dismissed.