United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR O SEGAL (of Counsel) Appearing under the Employment Law Appeal Advice Scheme
For the Respondents	MS T GILL (of Counsel) The Solicitor Inland Revenue Solicitors Office Somerset House London WC2 2SG


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): This is an appeal from the Registrar's order dated 5 June 1996. She refused Mrs Williams' application for an extension of time for the lodging of her Notice of Appeal in this case.

The Notice of Appeal was received by the Employment Appeal Tribunal on 7 January 1997 and it relates to a decision of an Industrial Tribunal held at London (South) on 7 May 1996, which decision was sent to the parties on 15 May 1996. It is from that date that the time for appealing runs.

There is a 42 day period for making an appeal. That period is deliberately long so as to enable parties to consider their position and take whatever advice they wish, so as to arm themselves with information which can enable them to make an appeal, if that is what they decide to do. It is our experience here that 42 days, as a time limit, is ample for almost all the litigants who wish to complain about Tribunal decisions.

I approach this appeal on this basis. At the hearing on 7 May 1996 Mrs Williams was due to be represented, but her representative had at the last minute been compelled to go abroad (I think) and she unsuccessfully sought an adjournment of the case so that she could be represented. That application for an adjournment was refused by Mr Booth, sitting alone as Chairman and the hearing then continued. The purpose of that hearing was essentially to see whether it would be just and equitable for her to have an extension of time in which to lodge her complaint of discrimination against her employers, the Inland Revenue. Essentially, she was complaining of events which had occurred in January 1993, which was the last date that she had been to work apart from one day.

The Industrial Tribunal Chairman came to the conclusion that it would not be a case where he should exercise his discretion to extend time. The complaint should have been made within three months of the date of the acts complained of and it was presented well out of time.

The other purpose of the hearing was to enable the Industrial Tribunal to make such directions as they felt necessary in relation to Mrs Williams' second complaint, which related to the way the Inland Revenue had carried out an investigation. I will say no more about that matter; it was the subject of a separate complaint. A separate Originating Application had been filed by Mrs Williams and these two matters, although against the same parties, raised quite different allegations.

The decision was, in due course, received by Mrs Williams. She believed that because the second case was (so to speak) on the go and was going to come up before the Industrial Tribunal in due course, the two cases were linked. She was not provided, surprisingly, with the usual information which is given to litigants with the Tribunal's written decision. I am prepared to accept that that was an oversight in her case and that she did not therefore have the literature which told her, in terms, of her right to appeal and the time limits. But it is to be observed, as the Industrial Tribunal noted in paragraph 2 of its decision (as it was put there, I hope not patronizingly) she is a woman of some education and in the area where she lives and works there are a number of advice agencies which know about employment law matters. She therefore, obviously, had access to advice.

It is not entirely clear from what I have been told, as to whether she did take advice about her position, between then and the date when her second application came on for hearing before the Industrial Tribunal on 19 November, to consider her second complaint. By that date she had the benefit of being represented by an organisation which holds itself out as being competent to represent people in a position such as herself, and they would wish, I am sure, to be treated on the basis that they are competent to fulfil the services which they offer to those whom they represent. I therefore take the view that, as of 19 November 1996, Mrs Williams had access to competent advice as to employment law matters in relation to tribunal procedure and so forth.

Her Notice of Appeal was, by this stage, well out of time in relation to the decision in May and, it seems to me reasonably clear that any competent adviser at that time, if it had been thought that it was worthwhile to appeal the decision of the Industrial Tribunal, would have advised an urgent lodging of a Notice of Appeal at that time.

The fact is that more than 42 days elapsed between the date when I take it that Mrs Williams did have access to proper advice and the date when we received the Notice of Appeal. I also take into account, as I may, the fact that I would have regarded any prospective appeal against the decision of the Tribunal, given on 7 May, as being without any reasonable prospect of success.

Looking at the terms of the decision itself, it seems to me that there is no detectable error of law and, in so far as the Chairman was exercising his discretion under the statute, it is a wide discretion given to him, the exercise of which will seldom give rise to a legitimate complaint in the appeal court. I also take into account the fact that, when the appeal was originally advanced, it was not put on the basis that Mrs Williams had been confused as to her rights, rather it was on the basis that the Tribunal, in its second decision, had, by virtue of using the case reference in the first and the second decisions, started the time to run again, so the time only ran from the date of the second decision.

In the circumstances, in the exercise of my discretion, I am not satisfied that I have been provided with a sufficiently good reason to justify the delay in the lodging of the Notice of Appeal and I would not be prepared to extend time and it follows, therefore, that in my judgment, the decision of the Registrar was right and should not be disturbed.

The appeal is dismissed.