United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

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


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): The purpose of this hearing is to determine whether there is an arguable point of law in an appeal which Ms Rushton wishes to make against a decision of an Industrial Tribunal held at Nottingham on Monday, 28th July 1997. That decision was sent to the parties and entered in the Register on 31st July 1997.

The essence of the decision was this. Ms Rushton complained that she had been unfairly dismissed from her employment by the respondents, British Nursing Co-operations Ltd trading as BNA on 7th February 1997.

The case came before the Industrial Tribunal by way of a preliminary point. The preliminary point was to determine whether the Industrial Tribunal had jurisdiction to consider the complaint.

In a succinct and well set out decision, the Industrial Tribunal concluded that the complaint should be dismissed. Firstly, because she had less than the requisite period of service if she were an employee; secondly, because her Originating Application had been presented out of time; and thirdly, because, as they held, she was not in fact an employee at all but that she was a self-employed person and the respondents were her agents seeking to place her as a nurse with various organisations. For those three reasons, they dismissed her application.

She put in a Notice of Appeal, as she was entitled to do, dated 20th August 1997. It is not entirely apparent to us on what particular grounds she wishes to rely in saying that the decision of the Industrial Tribunal was wrong in law. What she said was that the reasons for her appeal were that there was unfair dismissal on the grounds of no warning; that the dismissal letter took a long time arriving; and that the meeting on 7th February was to discuss issues; that it was an informal meeting which only lasted for two minutes and was based on unsubstantiated claims.

It seems to us, with respect to Ms Rushton who has not appeared before us but whose Notice of Appeal we have looked at with care, that there are no points of law which she has raised in her Notice of Appeal which suggest that the decision of the Industrial Tribunal was wrong in law. Indeed, as we read her Notice of Appeal, these are the points she would wish to make if the tribunal had had jurisdiction to consider her complaint. But the decision of the tribunal was that they did not have jurisdiction. It seems to us that there is nothing in the Notice of Appeal which suggests that that decision was wrong. Accordingly, this appeal must be dismissed.