United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MS K MONAGHAN (of Counsel) Instructed by: Ms Grant Principal Legal Officer Commission for Racial Equality Elliot House 10/12 Allington Street London SW1E 5EH


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): The purpose of this hearing is to determine whether there are arguable points of law raised in a Notice of Appeal which is against a decision of an Industrial Tribunal which relates solely to the question of quantum following a successful complaint of unlawful discrimination on grounds of race.

The decision of the tribunal is contained in extended reasons sent to the parties on 1st December 1997.

With Ms Monaghan's assistance on behalf of the applicant/appellant, we have identified four points which are, as it seems to us, arguable. The first relates to the loss figure of £55,000. It was arrived at by the process set out in the tribunal's decision at paragraph 13. Ms Monaghan says that there was effectively no evidence to warrant any reduction in the full amount which should have been awarded for this period of £70,000. She says that there was no evidence to justify a finding that there would have been or might have been a slow start in the build-up of the commission which would have been earned.

Related to that, as it seems to us, is the second issue which is whether the tribunal have fairly and justly assessed a percentage reduction of 25% which is referred to in paragraph 12 of the tribunal's decision. What Ms Monaghan says is that the basis for making a discount is unsatisfactory; that the evidence showed that the reason why people tended to leave after a relatively short period of employment with these employers, would not apply in the case of the applicant; and she says, in any event, that the 25% reduction was unfair, based as it was, on the discounted figure of £55,000, and accordingly, there may have been an element double-counting in the reduction of the award.

The third identifiable ground of appeal simply relates to the way in which the Industrial Tribunal have applied the percentage chance figure to which I have referred, and a reduction which they made on the basis of his failure to mitigate his loss. It seems to us that that point is arguable having regard to the decision of the Ministry of Defence v Hunt [1996] IRLR 139, subsequently affirmed by the Court of Appeal.

The final matter relates to the proper period for the calculation of interest. It is the appellant's contention that the interest period runs from 8th April 1992 and ends on 1st December 1997, which gives a period of five years and 34 weeks and that that should have been taken as the period, rather than a rounded figure of five years which is what the tribunal have taken.

Regrettably this is an appeal which will require us to look at the Notes of Evidence of the Industrial Tribunal, but we can confine the Notes to the evidence of two people, namely, the applicant himself, and the respondent's witness, Miss Maddison. Both of them gave witness statements, so to a large extent, their evidence will be in written form, copies of which we have available. We understand that the oral part of their examination was relatively short, and we hope that the learned Chairman will not be inconvenienced by our request that he provides his Notes of Evidence in relation to those two witnesses.

We give leave to amend the Notice of Appeal as requested. This case is Category C and is estimated to last one day.