United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	MR MARK DALE (Consultant) Messrs Richard C Hall & Partners Crown Buildings 121a Saughall Road Blacon Chester CH1 5ET


 


JUDGE PUGSLEY: In this case the appellant before us on a preliminary hearing seeks to argue that the Industrial Tribunal has reached a decision which is subject to a misdirection of law and/or in the alternative is perverse. The tribunal found the employees was entitled to redundancy payment.

We have some difficulty in understanding the basis upon which the submission is made. It is true that Industrial Tribunals must set out the main findings of fact and the main propositions of law, so that in homely terms, it can be said that the parties must go away knowing why they have won or why they have lost and a higher tribunal, the Employment Appeal Tribunal and the Court of Appeal, can identify any error of law. We can see no error of law.

Complaint is made that the tribunal did not first consider the issue of suitability. Tribunals are not engaged in answering undergraduate exam questions. There was no question but that the alternative employment was suitable. The factory was relocated, closing down and business was transferred to Meltham near Huddersfield some 18 miles away. We do not think a tribunal is to be criticised for not solemnly and formally setting out an issue does not seem to have arisen. No one is suggesting, save and except that it was a different location, the job was any different.

It is true the tribunal could have expanded the decision. We think that anybody reading this decision would know perfectly well that it was the tribunal's view that the refusal to travel 18 miles when the employees could obtain employment locally was not unreasonable.

We think that the total decision read as a whole makes it quite clear that this tribunal took the view that the business had been relocated, that the employment was clearly suitable, but neither the applicants were unreasonable in refusing the offer of alternative employment since it involved a substantial increase in the amount of travelling they would have to do. We see no objection to them taking into account the fact that both men could get employment locally. The distance is a matter that the tribunal would have had in their minds. It is local tribunal discussing and considering a local problem. This is clearly an issue of fact for a tribunal to determine.

In the circumstances we consider that the tribunal were perfectly proper in reaching the decision they did and that there is no ground for saying that it was not open to them to find that the men were not unreasonable in refusing the offer of alternative employment.