United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	NO APPEARANCE BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANTS
For the Respondents	NO APPEARANCE BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE RESPONDENTS


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): This is an appeal against a refusal of an Industrial Tribunal to adjourn proceedings which are due to commence on 8th September 1998.

The application for an adjournment was made by letter dated 1st September 1998. The tribunal's reply was sent on 2nd September refusing the application. The date of 8th September 1998 had been fixed by the Industrial Tribunal by letter dated 31st July 1998. Accordingly, it is clear that this was a very late application for an adjournment as was noted in the Industrial Tribunal's letter of 2nd September 1998. The tribunal said this in refusing the adjournment:

"The request for a postponement is belated and is opposed by the respondents who have made arrangements to attend. It is therefore refused. You have not said why the witnesses cannot attend.

Mr Currill's case will also proceed. He is not entitled to require the respondents to follow him to his new residence to resolve a dispute which arose in the region.

I am copying this correspondence as indicated below."

The grounds for the application and forming the basis of this appeal, may be summarised in this way. There are two cases brought against the same employer and there are therefore two appeals which we are taking together. Mr Currill made an application and Mrs Chatten made an application.

In relation to Mrs Chatten's application for an adjournment, she told the Industrial Tribunal that the date fixed turns out not to be convenient bearing in mind certain commitments at her daughter's school which she says she must meet on the day in question.

We are not impressed by that as a reason for an application for an adjournment because we have little doubt that if the school were told that there was a problem in Mrs Chatten coming to the school to discuss the daughter's future academic career on the particular dates the school will accommodate her reasonable wishes to see them on a later occasion.

Mrs Chatten also says that one of her witnesses, a Mrs Cafferkey, only recently told her that as her sister was ill she would be unavailable as she would be going to London.

No details in relation to the illness, when it occurred, or the requirements of this witness to go to London are provided. If, of course, at the hearing on 8th September 1998 it transpires that Mrs Cafferkey's evidence is crucial but that she is genuinely unable to attend, then the application for an adjournment can be repeated and the tribunal may wish to consider whether that witness's evidence could be admitted in written form.

The same applies to another witness, Mrs Monico, whom Mrs Chatten says is currently advised by her doctor in the present state of her grief, that she should not attend the tribunal.

Again, no details are given in relation to this matter and no indication given as to when Mrs Monico would be in a position to give evidence. I repeat what I said in relation to the previous witness. An application for an adjournment can always be renewed before the Industrial Tribunal who will then be in a very good position to see whether the interests of justice require the case to be adjourned and they will be better able to decide that when they know what the witness could say and what the issues are with which they are having to deal.

There is a further matter which is referred to in a fax which was recently received by the Employment Appeal Tribunal. I will simply refer to it as the matters set out in the further details in paragraph 1B. The reason why I do that is because Mrs Chatten starts that point off by saying:

"Very confidentially (and I did not disclose this to the Tribunal) ..."

It is sufficient for the purposes of this judgment that we should say that we do not consider that anything contained within that paragraph provides any grounds for an appeal against the exercise of the Chairman's discretion to refuse an adjournment. Even if this had been raised before the Industrial Tribunal, we are sure that the learned Chairman would not have reached a different decision. The Chairman can no doubt discuss this matter with his colleagues when the hearing commences, if an application for an adjournment is renewed before him.

Therefore, we are unanimously of the view that the decision made by the Industrial Tribunal not to adjourn Mrs Chatten's case was one which was well within their discretion to take and we are not able to identify any error of law and her appeal must be dismissed.

In relation to Mr Currill's appeal. There is some cross-linking between the two cases. Firstly because Mrs Chatten is acting as his agent. Secondly, because, apparently, the employers have invited Mrs Chatten to be a witness in relation to Mr Currill's complaint. There is also in our papers a documents which purports to be a complaint by Mrs Chatten against her employers for not dealing with an allegation of sexual harassment in relation to Mr Currill. He, essentially, says that it would be unfair for the case to take place on 8th September 1998 because he has just managed to obtain alternative employment outside the area where these proceedings are to take place.

Of course in relation to that as a ground for an adjournment we do not know because we are not told what attempts he has made to persuade his new employers to give him time off to present his complaint to the Industrial Tribunal, and nor do we have any reason to believe that the fact that he is working away from the region is going to be any different if the case was adjourned from 8th September 1998 and fixed for a later date. That, as we understand it, is going to be his position whatever date is found for this case.

It seems to us, for the same reasons that I have attempted to give in relation to Mrs Chatten's appeal, that this was a decision by an Industrial Tribunal which fell well within their remit. It was an exercise of discretion by them with which we cannot interfere unless there has been an error of law. We are not satisfied that any such error has been demonstrated or that their decision could be described as perverse. Accordingly, Mr Currill's appeal too must be dismissed.