United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR MANUELPILLAI (Husband)


 


MR JUSTICE MAURICE KAY: This is the preliminary hearing of an appeal against the decision of the Industrial Tribunal at London (North). The hearing was on 6th February 1997 and extended reasons for the decision were given on 29th May 1997. The issue before the Industrial Tribunal on that occasion was whether the three month time limit relating to unfair dismissal claims, should be extended by the Industrial Tribunal pursuant to the statutory provisions. It is well-known and accepted, that the three month time limit applies from the effective date of termination of employment, save that an Industrial Tribunal can extend it where it is satisfied, inter alia, that it was not reasonably practicable for the appellant to start the proceedings within the three months.

So far as this case is concerned, the facts found by the Industrial Tribunal were that the appellant tendered her resignation in mid-June 1996 and she worked her last day on 17th June 1996. That was the effective date of termination for the purposes of the proceedings. She was in due course to claim that she had been constructively dismissed.

Other facts found by the Industrial Tribunal were as follows: the expiration of the three month limit occurred on 16th September 1996. Some time before Friday, 13th September 1996, an Originating Application containing a claim alleging unfair dismissal was completed by the appellant's husband and was then signed by the appellant. That documentation was in the hands of the appellant's husband on Friday, 13th September 1996, but it was not put in the post until some time the following week.

It had been the case for the appellant through the evidence and submissions given and made by her husband, that he would have put it in the post on Friday, 13th September 1996, along with a lot of other post from his office, but the Industrial Tribunal rejected that assertion. It was found as a fact that posting actually took place in the afternoon of Thursday, 20th September 1996, that finding being based on the post mark which showed a time and date of 6p.m. on 20th September 1996. It arrived in the office of the tribunal on 23rd September 1996.

Some question arose as to whether the post may have been disrupted by industrial action, but enquiries produced the information that there were no relevant disruptions by reason of industrial action to the postal service on any date relevant to these proceedings.

The appellant's husband has represented her here today, as indeed he did before the Industrial Tribunal, and he made his submissions with clarity. He invites this appeal tribunal to take into account firstly, the fact that the appellant was out of the country for some 25 days following the effective date of termination of employment; and secondly, that on her return she learnt of the death of her general practitioner and found herself in circumstances which her husband describes as traumatic. We have seen the letter by which she was advised of the death of her general practitioner; it bears a date of 24th July 1996. Still a considerable period of time before the expiry of the three month period.

It seems to us that accepting as facts her absence from the country and the death of her general practitioner and the circumstances at the time stated, there is nothing about those matters which would cause us to even contemplate interference with the decision of the Industrial Tribunal.

The next matter upon which reliance is made, is the fact that the appellant had also applied for unemployment benefit and her claim had met with some difficulties as claims for unemployment benefit in allegedly constructive dismissal circumstances often do. There is a letter dated 13th September 1996 from the Employment Service indicating resolution of that dispute and indicating further that unemployment benefit would be paid.

The submission made on behalf of the appellant is that it was only upon receipt of that letter that she considered she was in a position to proceed to the Industrial Tribunal to claim that she had been constructively and unfairly dismissed; and in that regard, reliance is placed on the case of Walls Meat v Khan [1978] IRLR 499.

Every case of this kind turns primarily upon its own facts. When the Industrial Tribunal in the present case considered whether it was reasonably practicable to commence the proceedings within the three month period, they clearly and inevitably had regard to the facts that on Friday, 13th September 1996, before receiving the letter from the Employment Service, and probably before knowing that one was going posted that day, the appellant, through her husband, had a completed application form which as a matter of reasonable practicability could have been dispatched that day, if not earlier. In those circumstances, when the Industrial Tribunal concluded that it had been reasonably practicable for proceedings to commence within the three month period, they reached a conclusion which on any basis was open to them and, in our judgment, was, on the facts of this case, inevitable.

Appeals from Industrial Tribunals to this appeal tribunal only arise on points of law. In our judgment, no arguable point of law is raised by this appeal. Indeed, we go further than that, and say that on the facts as found by the Industrial Tribunal and properly so found, it is difficult to see how the outcome could have been any different.

Therefore, there being no ground of appeal raising a point of law which has any prospect of success, this appeal is hereby dismissed.