United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	THE APPELLANTS NEITHER PRESENT NOR REPRESENTED
For the Respondent	THE RESPONDENT NEITHER PRESENT NOR REPRESENTED


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): This is an appeal against the refusal of an Employment Tribunal to grant the respondents' application for an adjournment.

The grounds on which an application for an adjournment was made on behalf of the respondents in the Employment Tribunal, namely the Holly Hill Sports & Social Club Ltd, was that the Secretary will be unable to attend as he will be out of the country from 6th November until 11th December 1998 and he has satisfactorily established through a photostat of his itinerary that that is indeed true. He wrote to the Employment Tribunal on 19th October asking for the hearing due to take place on 23rd November 1998 to be adjourned for that reason. The letter of the Employment Tribunal of 21st October says:

"Your letter of 19 October 1998 was referred to a Chairman of the Employment Tribunals who has refused your request for a postponement of the hearing on Monday 23 November 1998, at present.

The Chairman directs that I enquire whether there is no other person who can present the Respondent's case and evidence. Please reply by return."

As we understand the papers, there was no response to that sensible request of the Employment Tribunal, but instead a Notice of Appeal was lodged here dated 26th October 1998.

There has been no attendance on this appeal and therefore we are happy to deal with it on the papers.

The applicant in the Employment Tribunal, that is the respondent to this appeal, has written and said that the secretary:

"Mr Gibson, has other members/officials on his management committee who could handle this matter at this hearing. ... There are:-

Chairman - Mr William Waddle

Vice Chairman - Mr Joseph Brayson

Treasurer - Mr John Rousell

also a postponement could affect my witnesses attendance.

My witnesses have arranged for time to attend with their employers for the date that you have arranged for this hearing."

We can only interfere with an interlocutory decision of this sort of an Employment Tribunal if we are satisfied that it is either given by reason of a misdirection in law, or is an exercise of a discretion which is perverse. We have to say that we regard the way the Employment Tribunal's approach in this matter as entirely sensible. They were indicating in their letter of 21st October 1998 that on the basis of the information which they were then provided with, they were not prepared at that time to grant the adjournment, but no doubt they would consider the matter again after the Holly Hill Sports & Social Club had responded to the enquiry which the Employment Tribunal was making, namely whether there was any other person who could represent the respondents' case and present the evidence.

It was wholly unreasonable, in our judgment, for the Holly Hill Sports & Social Club to launch a Notice of Appeal to the Employment Tribunal against that decision without having attempted to respond to the question which was asked or indeed to provide us with any satisfactory answer to that important question.

Accordingly, it seems to us, that this appeal must be dismissed. If of course, in due course a further application for an adjournment is made, then no doubt the Employment Tribunal will consider it on its merits. It seems to us unfair to suggest that they have erred in law when the appellants themselves have failed to co-operate with the Employment Tribunal's reasonable request.