United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

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


 


MR JUSTICE KEENE: This preliminary hearing in the case of Matthews v The Post Office is one held in the usual way so that we can determine whether there is any point of law which justifies the matter going further. There is no representation on behalf of the appellant today and no appearance by him, but his former solicitors have written a letter dated 10th March 1997 in which they say that Legal Aid has been refused and that he would wish us to deal with the matter on the basis of the written grounds of appeal which amount to his skeleton argument. We shall do so.

The appellant challenges a decision of an Industrial Tribunal sitting at Leeds entered in the Register on 29th October 1996. In that decision the tribunal determined that his claim for unfair dismissal was dismissed upon the withdrawal of that claim by the appellant, and they also went on to dismiss his claim for damages for breach of contract. The tribunal found that the appellant had only been employed by the respondent for a period of nine days. Consequently the appellant conceded that he was not entitled to maintain a claim for unfair dismissal because he did not have the appropriate qualifying period of service. Although he still alleges unfair dismissal in the Notice of Appeal, there is no suggestion that he was dismissed for an inadmissible reason. Consequently the two years continuous service remains as a requirement and was not met. In those circumstances any argument of unfair dismissal is a non-starter.

So far as the breach of contract allegation is concerned, there was a provision in his contract of employment that the contract could be terminated on notice by either party and that period was to be one day's notice if the employee had less than four weeks service which was the case here. However, it was also provided that he could be dismissed without notice in the event of gross misconduct. The employer asserted that the appellant had been dismissed for gross misconduct and the tribunal found that that was so. It found that the appellant, who had been a postman, had refused to obey a reasonable instruction given to him by his line manager. The tribunal concluded that this amounted to gross misconduct. The Notice of Appeal does not raise any basis for challenge to that finding.

There is an allegation in the Notice of Appeal of a breach of a contractual term by the employer in respect of the dismissal procedure. But no details are given to substantiate such a claim. It is also far from clear that such an argument was ever raised as an issue before the tribunal. Nothing appears in its decision to that effect, and it is not alleged in the Notice of Appeal that the tribunal has failed to record such an argument. In all those circumstances, we can see no arguable point raised by that particular allegation.

Lastly, the Notice of Appeal also raises certain allegations about the proceedings before the Industrial Tribunal. It is said that the employer produced a mass of paperwork which the appellant did not have a proper opportunity to consider, and that the conduct of the tribunal itself was oppressive and that he was thereby denied a fair hearing. Again, the Notice of Appeal does not condescend to any detail in respect of those allegations, nor has there been any skeleton argument in the true sense produced to support them. Moreover, when a complaint is made as to the conduct of proceedings before a tribunal, this appeal tribunal would expect an affidavit in support of that allegation to substantiate the complaints in detail, because otherwise it becomes all too easy for such an allegation to be made at this stage and for there to be a point of law allegedly raised on that particular procedural basis. Nothing of that kind has been provided here. In those circumstances we can see nothing that arises from the bare allegation of procedural error or misconduct that merits any further consideration by this appeal tribunal.

In those circumstances, it follows that there is no arguable point disclosed, and this appeal will be dismissed at this stage.