United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	NO APPEARANCE OR REPRESENTATION BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANTS


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): The purpose of the hearing in these two cases is to determine whether there is any arguable point of law raised in the Notice of Appeal which Mr and Mrs Isherwood wish to raise against a decision of an Industrial Tribunal Chairman, sitting alone, at Manchester on 14 January 1998.

By his decision, the learned Chairman held that the Isherwoods were not employees of their company. The Tribunal in its decision in paragraph 6, makes specific reference to a passage from the decision of Buchan and Ivey v Secretary of State for Employment [1997] IRLR 80. That was no doubt partly on the basis of the written submissions filed on behalf of the Secretary of State, which had been before the Industrial Tribunal dated 29 October 1997.

It is to be noted that, so far as we can tell from the papers at this time, those acting on behalf of the Secretary of State did not draw the Industrial Tribunal's attention to a decision involving the Secretary of State called Fleming, which decision was handed down by the Court of Session at the end of July 1997.

It is the Appellants contention, in brief, that the Industrial Tribunal Chairman did not have the benefit of looking at the Fleming decision, which casts a different light on the proposition of law, on which the learned Chairman purported to rely.

It seems to us that that is an arguable point of law fit for hearing before a panel of the Employment Appeal Tribunal at which the Secretary of State should be given an opportunity to make representations. By giving leave in this way, we are not and are not intending to, give any indication to the parties as to the likely outcome of the appeal at a contested hearing.

This is a Category B case. I would estimate that it will take no longer than 1½ hours to argue. Notes of Evidence are not required and there are no other directions to be given.