United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR S NEAMAN (of Counsel) Messrs Copley Clark & Bennett Solicitor 36 Grove Road Sulton Surrey
For the Respondent	MR W DIAMOND (Representative)


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): This was an application for Notes of Evidence. The issue in the case is whether the Industrial Tribunal were entitled to conclude that as part of the damages for breach of contract, it would have taken the employer two months extra to have complied with their contractual obligations under the dismissal procedure before the Appellant was dismissed. The Appellant says that he told the Tribunal that it would have taken a period of 12 months for him lawfully to have been dismissed. The Tribunal said he gave that evidence and it is the Appellant's case that he was not challenged on that, in the sense that he was not cross-examined about it and that the employers did not call any evidence themselves as to how long they say it would have taken.

Those assertions and how the case was presented below are not in issue. What will be in issue before this Court are the principles of law which apply in a breach of contract case, and the extent to which any evidence would have been pertinent to the very issue which the Tribunal had to decide, bearing in mind that the Court was faced with a hypothetical question to which it was required to give a hypothetical answer. That is not a matter which falls for determination today, but no doubt will have to be considered at the hearing of the appeal.

In the light of the position between the two parties, it does not seem to me that there is any need for Notes of Evidence in this case. I was asked by Counsel, Mr Neaman to give this judgment because he is worried that he might be criticised in due course for not pressing his application for Notes of Evidence. I see no reason why he should be criticised, bearing in mind the position which I have described.