United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	THE APPELLANT IN PERSON


 


JUDGE LEVY QC: This is the preliminary hearing of an appeal by Miss Patricia Panton against a decision of an Industrial Tribunal which was promulgated to the parties on 8th January 1998.

The history of her complaint against the respondent, Aston University ["the University"], is as follows. Miss Panton made an Originating Application on 1st October 1996 claiming redundancy pay and unfair dismissal. The University entered a Notice of Appearance on 10th April 1997.

There was a hearing of Miss Panton's complaint which lasted a full five days from 1st to 5th December 1997. On 8th and 9th December 1997, the tribunal considered their decision. It was promulgated on 8th January 1998.

Paragraph 1 of the extended reasons reads:

"1 The applicant initially brought a claim on 1 October 1996 alleging that she had been unfairly dismissed and that she had not received her redundancy pay entitlement. As a result of a direction given at an interlocutory hearing on 20 February 1997 the applicant was given leave to amend her originating application to include a claim for damages for racial discrimination arising out of the termination of her contract of employment on 30 September 1996. The respondent amended its notice of appearance in accordance with the direction ... and then obtained leave on 25 November 1997 to re-amend its notice of appearance by adding a provision for the dismissal to be, as an alternative to redundancy, for some other substantial reason. ..."

The reserved decision of the Industrial Tribunal runs to 23 pages. It is one which we have all read very anxiously, not only because of the grounds on which Miss Panton relies in her Notice of Appeal, but also because of the matters which she set out in a preliminary skeleton argument dated 24th April 1998 which was sent to us prior to this preliminary appeal hearing.

Miss Panton's Notice of Appeal, dated 16th February 1998, reads as follows:

"The Appellant appeals on the following grounds

(1) The Industrial Tribunal wrongly held that the Appellant (Ms Panton) was not discriminated against when it was clear that she had no training on the autoclave - when all other employees working in the department had been trained by Mr Tilling. This was a misinterpretation of the facts and the Law."

We have explained to Miss Panton, when she addressed us orally, that findings of fact were a matter for the Industrial Tribunal and we were only entitled to interfere with those findings if there was no evidence given on which it could properly reach the findings made or if the findings were otherwise perverse. On her training on the use of the autoclave, there was this passage at paragraph 5(14) in the Industrial Tribunal's extended reasons:

"... The applicant had been trained along with all the other users of the autoclave by the engineer who had installed the equipment."

Having regard to ground 1 of her Notice of Appeal we asked her to comment on this finding of fact, She then said that her complaint was that she had not been trained, but that she had not been retrained by Mr Tilling.

We notice that the question of her relationship with Mr Tilling took a great number of paragraphs of the tribunal's decision. The retraining of Miss Panton does not figure among the findings made, but we also notice that among the findings of fact at paragraph 5(2) of the decision there is this:

"... It was also the applicant's responsibility to ensure that equipment which might contain dangerous chemicals was also properly cleaned and where necessary disposed of. The skills were essentially cleaning skills. They did not require any specific technical knowledge on the part of the applicant, other than the proper operation of the autoclave."

Having considered carefully the whole of the findings of the tribunal, the fact that no findings were made on the retraining on the autoclave does not seem to us to be a matter which effects the decision of the tribunal. What the tribunal found was that there had been no discrimination as respects Miss Panton on training in the use of the autoclave.

Of allegations of discrimination made by Miss Panton, at paragraph 4 of the extended reasons:

"... the tribunal concluded that the applicant in a number of key areas exaggerated her evidence or deliberately took facts out of their context and tried to apply them in such a way that they supported her contention that she had been the subject of discrimination."

This is a finding adverse to Miss Panton from a tribunal who had the opportunity to hear her evidence over a number of days. It may be that another tribunal might have come to a different decision on her as a witness and on the evidence she has advanced, but when a tribunal has had the opportunity of seeing witnesses, their findings are findings which this Court must respect unless they were clearly wrong. Having regard to the whole of the decision, which we have read carefully, we cannot think that the Industrial Tribunal was wrong on its assessment of Miss Panton or on the finding made on the first ground of appeal.

The second ground of appeal raised in the Notice of Appeal is this:

"(2) The Industrial Tribunal wrongfully accepted Prof. Tisdale's evidence when he stated that Ms. Panton had been seen working at her sisters shop and also that Ms. Panton was on a probationary period at work. It was later accepted by Prof. Tisdale that his information was incorrect. Despite this the Industrial Tribunal wrongfully accepted his earlier evidence."

Though there are may reference to Professor Tisdale in the course of the extended reasons, we cannot find a reference to matters set out in the first sentence. The tribunal dealt with one aspect of Professor Tisdale's evidence at paragraph 5(25) in their extended reasons.

"(25) On 25 July the applicant went at the invitation of Professor Tisdale to see him. The applicant alleges that Professor Tisdale told her that she was being discriminated against but that he did not feel that the decision to make her redundant was racially motivated. Professor Tisdale's recollection of the conversation was that he had not mentioned discrimination nor, as alleged, did he ask why Professor Billington had not spoken to her. The reason for that was that Professor Tisdale, through his long acquaintance with the applicant in the Department, had been the Professor who had accepted that he would speak to her about her redundancy. The tribunal accepted the evidence of Professor Tisdale as to what was said in the discussion. They noted in particular that the applicant in the course of the conversation had expressed the idea of a vendetta against University staff and in particular had said that she was going "to get" Professor Hickman. This appeared to the tribunal to be consistent with the demand made through the applicant's union that she receive an apology from Professor Hickman as a term for her leaving the University."

In paragraph 6.2 they find:

"... There was no discrimination either by Professor Tisdale or Professor Brown in their discussions with the applicant."

Findings of fact and conclusions of fact have to be made by an Industrial Tribunal. They do not have to note on every issue raised. On the findings made by the tribunal, we are satisfied that the tribunal were entitled to accept the parts of Professor Tisdale's evidence which Miss Panton claim in ground 2 of her Notice of Appeal should have been rejected.

In her preliminary skeleton argument and in her oral address to us, Miss Panton raised a number of other issues in general terms. She averred that witnesses had told lies to the tribunal, and that findings of the tribunal were wrong.

Miss Panton made her submissions to us very calmly and we thank her for so doing. But there was nothing in any of the allegations which she made in her submissions which made any of us conclude that a genuine point of law arises in this appeal. The careful reserved decision of the Industrial Tribunal after a long hearing sets out the complaints made by Miss Panton and why, on the facts as found, they failed. In our judgment, if this matter proceeds to a full appeal there can only be one result, namely, dismissal. It is our duty not to allow appeals to go forward which are clearly hopeless. Miss Panton has had the opportunity of seeing a representative from ELAAS this morning. She has chosen to represent herself. We gave her every opportunity to augment her written submissions so that we were sure we could consider all she wishes us to consider on this appeal, but sympathy though we may have for her, it is not our duty to allow appeals to go forward on the grounds of sympathy. There is no point of law which arises on this appeal. It must be, therefore, dismissed at this stage.