United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR J COPLEY Free Representation Unit 49-51 Bedford Row London WC1R 4LR


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): The purpose of this hearing is to determine whether Mrs Savage has an arguable point of law in her appeal against a unanimous decision of an Industrial Tribunal held at London (South) on 4 March 1997. That decision related to the calculation of compensation following her constructive unfair dismissal on 1 November 1995 by her employer, Dr S.R. Saxena.

Mr Copley, in a written submission and orally today, has persuaded us that there are two arguable points of law fit for hearing before a full Tribunal. Firstly, were the Industrial Tribunal correct to look at Mrs Savage's weekly loss on the basis that income support and housing benefit was to be taken into account? He says they should not have done that, because those benefits are considered at the recoupment stage.

Secondly, the Industrial Tribunal expressed themselves as being satisfied that the Applicant had not made any serious attempt to seek alternative employment and accordingly, having found that she had failed to mitigate her loss, they were not prepared to award any compensation.

It is said by Mr Copley that what the Tribunal should have done, if satisfied that there was a failure to mitigate, was to ask themselves the question "what would have been the loss if she had taken proper steps to mitigate her loss?". He says that, for example, it might well have been reasonable for the Tribunal to have assumed that, even with her best endeavours, it would take a short period of time before she was able to obtain other comparable alternative employment and it appears that the Tribunal have not directed their mind to that issue.

Those are the two points which we have identified. We regard this as a very short question for the Employment Appeal Tribunal.