United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

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


 


MR JUSTICE BELL: This is a preliminary ex parte hearing in respect of an appeal by Mr Cuppelditch against the decision of an Industrial Tribunal held at Leicester on 24th November 1997. The case has been called, Mrs Cuppelditch has been called outside the Court. There has been no response, and it follows that she cannot have attended for this hearing. So we proceed to give our decision in her absence.

By its decision, entered in the Register on 27th November 1997, the Industrial Tribunal dismissed Mrs Cuppelditch's complaints of unlawful dismissal and breach of contract pursuant to rule 9(3) of the Industrial Tribunal Rules of Procedure 1993.

Its reasons were that Mrs Cuppelditch failed to attend the hearing at the time specified and that the Industrial Tribunal considered the Originating Application and Notice of Appearance and concluded that Mrs Cuppelditch was unlikely to succeed in her claims.

Mrs Cuppelditch had presented an Originating Application dated 23rd April 1997. It complained in Box 1 of unfair dismissal. It stated that her employment by the respondent authority as a school crossing supervisor ended on 22nd April 1997. The details in Box 11 are not easy are not easy to understand, but they do appear to allege that Mrs Cuppelditch was harassed in the performance of her duties on 17th and 22nd April 1997, and that "the Council are in breach of contract".

The authority's Notice of Appearance gave an explanation of what had happened at material times. It alleged that Mrs Cuppelditch was suspended after failure to carry out direct instructions from an officer of the respondent authority and a representative of the Police regarding the safe conduct of her duties as a school crossing patrol. Mrs Cuppelditch agreed to observe the instructions which were restated to her. Her suspension was lifted and she was asked to return to work, and as far as the authority was concerned, she was still employed by them. In other words, she had not been dismissed at all.

In any event, the Industrial Tribunal disposed of the matter as we have already summarised and Mrs Cuppelditch has appealed against its dismissal of her application to this Appeal Tribunal.

Her grounds of appeal, like the details of her Originating Application, are not easy to understand. But it is clear that she complains of not being sent notification of the Industrial Tribunal hearing.

As we have said, she has not attended before us today. We have quite apart from any other consideration, no satisfactory basis for even thinking that she may have been dismissed by the authority. If we thought that there was any risk of injustice to Mrs Cuppelditch we would let this matter proceed to a full hearing so that it could be fully aired. But the fact is that her complaint was of unfair dismissal; the allegations of breach of contract adds nothing and it appears that she had not been dismissed.

In all those circumstances, we propose to dismiss Mrs Cuppelditch's appeal at this preliminary stage.