United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MICHAEL COXON (Solicitor) Highfields & Belgrave Community Law Centre 6 Seymour Street Leicester LE2 OLB
For the Respondents	DINESH KOTAK (Director) Bowbridge Dyeworks Ltd West Avenue Chartwell Drive Industrial Estate Wigston Leicester LE18 2FB


 


MR JUSTICE KIRKWOOD: This is an appeal by Mr Patel from the decision of an Industrial Tribunal at Leicester on 13 February 1996, dismissing his claim for unfair dismissal. The Tribunal did not adjudicate at all in relation to the Appellant's complaint concerning a written statement of employment particulars. Two other complaints by the Appellant of unlawful deduction of wages and failure to provide statutory sickness payment, money or forms, have been resolved.

The Appellant was employed from October 1994 by Bowbridge Dyeworks Ltd, the Respondent. In June 1995 the Respondent made a deduction from the Appellant's wages due, we understand, to some material being damaged. On 17 July 1995 the Appellant was, he says, off sick. There was an issue as to whether he was in fact on holiday then and for the next two weeks. The Appellant claims to have telephoned to work with queries about his wages in the second half of July 1995. There was an issue about that. The last such occasion was on 30 or 31 July, when some unpleasantness seems to have developed over the telephone in which, according to the Appellant, he was dismissed. There was an issue about that.

The Appellant's first complaint to the Industrial Tribunal was under Section 60A of The Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978. That section reads, in its relevant parts:

"(1) The dismissal of an employee by an employer shall be regarded for the purposes of this Part as having been unfair if the reason for it (or, if more than one, the principal reason) was that the employee -

(b) alleged that the employer had infringed a right of his which is a relevant statutory right."

And in subsection (4) there is set out what is meant by the words "relevant statutory right" within the meaning of the section.

The Appellant's case was:

(a) that he was dismissed;

(b) the reason for that dismissal was his allegation that the Respondent had infringed a right of his and

(c) that that was a relevant statutory right, namely the right not to have deductions made from his wages.

There were two issues in the Appellant's mind about his wages. One was to do with the deduction made in June 1995 and the other was to do with his entitlement to sick pay. Thus, there were at the time, issues about both those matters.

The Industrial Tribunal's reasons (and so-called Full Reasons) were in these terms:

"DECISION

The unanimous decision of the Tribunal is that the Applicant is entitled to a payment under the Wages Act 1986 but the Tribunal has no jurisdiction to hear a claim for unfair dismissal.

FULL REASONS

1. The applicant claims that his dismissal was unfair because there is an infringement of his right, which is a relevant statutory right.

2. Having heard the evidence we do not find that the employer has infringed any relevant statutory right. Having got to that position the applicant has not had the necessary two years service to bring an application for unfair dismissal under any other head and therefore the unfair dismissal claim is dismissed.

3. He also claims £68.73 in respect of a deduction of wages made at the end of June 1995 which the employer has said that he would pay. We make an order that he shall pay that sum."

We were told that the case before the Industrial Tribunal took the best part of a day. There was evidence and cross-examination on it. Plainly, there were a number of relevant issues of fact which were explored.

The Appellant's subsequent request for Extended Reasons and the Chairman's Notes of Evidence met with a surprising response; namely that the written reasons given were the Extended Reasons and no more would be given. Secondly, that neither the Chairman nor the lay members had made any notes of evidence. We find both those matters quite astonishing.

The purpose of the entitlement to Extended Reasons is three-fold. First, to inform the parties why they have respectively won or lost. The second is to enable them to consider the possibility of an appeal. The third is to inform an appellate tribunal of the Industrial Tribunal's findings of fact and of how the Industrial Tribunal applied the law to those findings.

The Full Reasons given in this case do not begin to serve any of those purposes. Maybe the answer to the case was obvious to the Industrial Tribunal, but it was not to the Appellant, nor to us. The Industrial Tribunal expressed no finding of fact as to whether the Appellant was dismissed or, as to whether the Appellant made an allegation; or, if there was an allegation, whether it was an allegation amounting to infringement of a relevant statutory right.

All we can discern from the Full Reasons is a finding that there was, in fact, no infringement of any relevant statutory right. To that extent there appears, on the face of the Reasons, to be a misdirection as to the law. The question was not whether there was in fact an infringement, but whether there was an allegation of one. The reasons given for dismissal of the Appellant's complaint of unfair dismissal are wholly inadequate. There is furthermore, disclosed on the face of them, an error of law. The Industrial Tribunal failed to address the complaint as to a written statement of employment particulars. This decision cannot stand.

The appeal is allowed and the case is remitted for hearing de novo by a freshly constituted Industrial Tribunal.