United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

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


 


JUDGE PUGSLEY: This is a case where Mr Miles has not appeared. Enquiries have been made by the Court's staff and they were told that he had not received his Notice of Hearing. Then it was pointed out that he had in fact replied to the documentation seeking representation under the ELAAS scheme. He said that he had forgotten about the hearing and would seek an adjournment.

We have come to the view that this is a case where it is important that the matter is dealt with today and we see no good reason for an adjournment, and therefore, we proceed to hear the case.

The tribunal on 25th July 1996 heard the application and decided that they did not have jurisdiction to hear the appellant's claim since it was presented out of time.

The appellant had been dismissed and his application should have been received on or before 28th March, the date of termination being 29th December 1995. It was not received until 29th March having been posted at 6.15 p.m. on 28th March.

The appellant had not attended that hearing. In a subsequent hearing on 7th March 1997, the tribunal again dealt with the matter and decided to uphold their original decision. They point out that the appellant had arrived at the tribunal late. They were in the middle of the case when he arrived, but he did not actually come to the tribunal room. They accepted the reason for the appellant's lateness in arriving at the tribunal on 26th July, was because of the difficulty of the journey he had had to make from Uxbridge, and his lack of familiarity with the traffic system in Croydon he had arrived late. The tribunal went on to hear the case on its merits.

The tribunal then set out in paragraph 4 of their decision the reason the appellant gave for the late arrival of his originating application. Initially, the appellant was unaware of the three month time limit. The applicant was represented by his union during his employment and he consulted his union in January and February. By the time he had lodged his claim he was aware of three month time limit. The appellant blamed his trade union and accused them in being slow in telling him about the time limit. His application was sent by post on 28th March. That was in fact the last day. The tribunal observed that the applicant could of course have faxed application or asked his union to do so on his behalf.

The tribunal say that they were satisfied that no fresh evidence was before them, which would persuade them to overturn their original decision that the tribunal did not have jurisdiction to hear the appellant's claim, and they confirmed the original decision.

It seems to us that that is pre-eminently a matter where the tribunal, in the light of the fact they found, applied the law in such a way which cannot be the subject of criticism. In our view, there is no ground for saying there is an arguable of law.

It is right that we should say that the appellant's grounds of appeal raise many matters concerning what he believes to be the public reputation of the respondents. He deals with what he believes is the default and dereliction of the company in breaking the law concerning the preservation of their food stuffs. Those are not issues which this tribunal has any right to determine. We have come to the view that there is no arguable ground and the appeal is dismissed.