United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	THE APPELLANT IN PERSON


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): The purpose of this hearing was to determine whether Mr Conway has an arguable point of law in relation to a Notice of Appeal which he has lodged against a decision of an Industrial Tribunal dated 4th September 1997. By that decision the learned Chairman had refused Mr Conway's application for review. He had presented that application for a review within the relevant time limit, that is within 14 days of the decision which he was inviting the Industrial Tribunal to review. That decision was sent to the parties on 2nd July 1997 following a hearing on 10th June 1997. By their decision on that occasion the Industrial Tribunal concluded that Mr Conway did not have the required period of continuous employment to enable him to pursue his claim for unfair dismissal against the respondents and that the tribunal had no jurisdiction to hear his claim. The respondents were Centre Point Trading (UK) Ltd and a large number of other companies together with two named individuals.

Mr Conway's case was that he had been employed until February/March 1994 by a company called Countrytech Ltd which was a property company run by a Mr A Grossman. It came into financial difficulties at the end of 1993 early 1994, and in February 1994 Mr Conway was:

"3 ... was taken onto the payroll of Centre Point Trading (UK) Ltd."

The question therefore for the Industrial Tribunal was essentially whether the period of service with Centre Point could be aggregated with the earlier years of service with Countrytech. Mr Conway's employment with Centre Point came to an end in 1995 when he had less than two years continuous service. If the periods of employment could not be aggregated, then the Industrial Tribunal did not have jurisdiction.

The other respondents to the application had been added following a hearing before an Industrial Tribunal presided over by a different Chairman. He had indicated that he thought it was proper that at the hearing of the application that Mr Conway should have the opportunity of presenting his case against all of them.

The immediate question at issue before the Industrial Tribunal was whether the two companies, that I have named, were associated employers. The question as to whether two companies are associated, is one which is dealt with under statute and the Industrial Tribunal were required to consider it. Their conclusion was that they were not associated employers, and therefore, the two periods of employment could not be aggregated.

By his letter of 24th July 1997 Mr Conway indicated what the grounds were for asking for a review. It seems to us very clear that paragraphs 1(a), (b), (c) and paragraph 2 simply refer to matters of evidence which was presented to the Industrial Tribunal at the hearing in June. This was not new material which had not been available to the Industrial Tribunal. It appears that the real complaint of Mr Conway is that it does not appear overtly that the tribunal has taken the matters which he has referred to in those paragraphs into account in arriving at their decision. But he should understand that Industrial Tribunal decisions cannot and do not purport to deal with every point of evidence which has occurred during the course of the hearing. Their decision is a summary of the main points as it occurred to them, and which led them to their conclusion. The fact that there may have been some significance in the points which he has raised in his own mind but which were not referred to by the Industrial Tribunal in their decision, does not mean to say that the Industrial Tribunal had ignored those points at arriving at their conclusion. As we indicate, there are many points which they will have considered but which will not form part of the written decision itself.

The third numbered paragraph in that letter is simply a comment, but it seems to us, not a pertinent comment for the purposes of persuading an Industrial Tribunal to conduct a review.

The fourth point was this. Apparently the Industrial Tribunal did not pay any overt attention to the other respondents who, he alleges, appear to have been overlooked. But the reason why there is no express reference is apparent from the face of the Industrial Tribunal's decision, namely that the two candidates as employers, namely those who had been paying his wages, were the two named companies to whom I have referred.

The fifth numbered point is that Mr A Grossman was a director of the first named company and a director of the second named company and surely that meant, says Mr Conway, that he had continuity of employment.

With great respect, that shows a misunderstanding of the legal position and what is required before two employers could be said to be associated.

As to the sixth point, it seems to us that that has no merit. The other complaints which he may have had, were not adjudicated on by the Industrial Tribunal by their decision following the hearing on 10th June, which was a hearing solely to determine the question of jurisdiction in relation to his complaint of unfair dismissal.

Accordingly, we are quite satisfied that his letter of 24th July 1997 did not justify the Industrial Tribunal in holding a review. Accordingly, we see nothing wrong with the decision of the Industrial Tribunal on 4th September 1997 as contained in their letter. It seems to us on the contrary, that the Industrial Tribunal Chairman has correctly directed his attention to the review provisions in the Industrial Tribunals Rules of Procedure under Rule 11, and that this case plainly did not fall within those Rules.

We have no alternative, therefore, but to tell Mr Conway that his appeal raised no arguable point of law fit for hearing before a full panel.

He provided us with additional written representations at the end of his oral presentation in which suggests that he was somewhat pressured by the Industrial Tribunal during the course of the hearing and confined as to the questions he was entitled to ask.

We see nothing wrong with an Industrial Tribunal moving a case along as briskly as he thinks is appropriate. We do not consider that Mr Conway is, in effect, accusing the Industrial Tribunal of improper conduct.

But he also goes on to make in more or less detail many of the points which he made in his letter which he wrote to the Industrial Tribunal.

For the reasons we have already given, those matters do not take the case any further forward, and what he is seeking to do is to re-argue the merits of his application to the Industrial Tribunal, that is not the decision which is under review, rather it is the refusal by the Industrial Tribunal to hold the review that is under appeal to us at the present time. Therefore, I have to say to him, that although we have taken these additional matters into account, we do not think that they add anything to the points which we have already discussed.

Accordingly, and not without some regret, we dismiss the appeal.

We express our regret only because this might have been a case where the Employment Appeal Tribunal would have been prepared to re-look at the question of continuity of employment had Mr Conway appealed against the substantive decision of the Industrial Tribunal set out in its written reasons dated 2nd July 1997, but no such appeal has been made to us.