United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	MR D BASU (of Counsel) ELAAS


 


MR JUSTICE LINDSAY: We have before us, as a preliminary hearing, an appeal in the matter of Mr C J Richmond against Sugar Ray's Wine Bar. There is an amended Notice of Appeal dated 26th September 1997. Originally it specified three grounds. On 17th July 1998 the matter came before Morison P, and he ruled that only one of the three grounds could proceed further. We are not concerned with the rightness or wrongness of the President's decision, as there is no appeal against that. So two of the three grounds were effectively struck out. That left only one ground:

"The appellant appeals ...

c. against the Industrial Tribunal's refusal to supply extended reasons for their decision."

That Notice of Appeal, in its struck down form, says:

"4. The parties to the proceedings before the industrial tribunal, other than the appellant were:

Respondents: N N Preece ...

Duncan Falconer ...

Ian Heatherley ...

Applicant: Christopher Richmond ..."

The appellant is above described as:

"Bernard Arthur Pendry"

So those are the parties as described in the Notice of Appeal, five in all, Mr Pendry being the appellant to us and there having been three other respondents besides Mr Pendry below and the original applicant below: Mr Richmond.

The IT1, the original form of complaint, had shown that Mr Richmond was the applicant, as the erstwhile employee, and Messrs Pendry, Preece, Falconer and Heatherley were the persons described as the employers.

On 27th June 1997 there was a hearing before the Industrial Tribunal. The decision is endorsed as having been sent to the parties on 17th July 1997. It bears the usual stamp:

"Decision entered in Register

and copies set to the parties on

17th July 1997

[Signature]

for Secretary of the Tribunals."

That is on page 3 of the decision, which begins on its page 1 as follows:

"Applicant and Respondent

Mr C N Richmond Sugar Ray's Wine Bar"

Sugar Ray's Wine Bar is not a person. Sugar Ray's Wine Bar is not a party to the proceedings. It was part of individual respondents address as and was no doubt also the name of a business carried on, but it is not a person. The decision of the Industrial Tribunal was that:

"(i) The Applicant was unfairly dismissed by the Respondent [our emphasis] and within 21 days of the promulgation of this Decision, the Respondent [our emphasis] shall pay the Applicant the sum of £6,320 compensation for unfair dismissal.

(ii) The complaint of the Applicant of unlawful deduction from wages is well founded and within 21 days of the promulgation of this Decision, the Respondent [our emphasis] shall pay to the Applicant the sum of £225."

Looking at that page, marked 15 in our bundle, the singular respondent could be only. in the Industrial Tribunal's view, the singular person or singular entity described as a respondent on page 1, namely Sugar Ray's Wine Bar. But Sugar Ray's Wine Bar, not being a person, had never employed Mr Richmond, did not dismiss Mr Richmond, could not pay Mr Richmond any compensation or any other sum, never paid him wages (as it did not exist) and never deducted from his wages.

Only summary reasons were given at the end of the hearing on 27th June 1997, together with a statement of compensation as required by the Industrial Tribunals (Constitution etc.) Regulations 1993, Schedule 1 Regulation 10(3). The copy bears the customary stamp which we have already read. We have no evidence as to whom it was sent. Consistently with the Industrial Tribunal's heading of the respondent being Sugar Ray's Wine Bar, it would presumably have been sent only to Sugar Ray's Wine Bar and to Mr Richmond.

On 1st September 1997 Mr Pendry requested that extended reasons be given. On 10th September 1997 they were refused. The letter from the Industrial Tribunal to Mr Pendry says:

"Your letter of 1 September 1997 has been put before the Chairman. He has decided not to provide extended reasons. Your request was made more than 21 days after the decision was sent to the parties, on the 17 July 1998. Please refer to rule 10(4)(c) of the Industrial Tribunals Rules of Procedure 1993."

That, as we have indicated earlier, is the only matter as to which there is now an appeal before us.

Is there any arguable point of law in relation to that appeal? For that one has to look at the Rules. As the Chairman not improperly decided to play by the Rules, he must stand by the Rules. What 10(4) says:

"The reasons for the decision of the tribunal shall be given in summary form except where-

...

(c) such a request is made in writing by a party after the hearing either-

(i) before any document recording the reasons in summary form is sent to the parties [our emphasis]; or

(ii) within 21 days of the date on which that document was went to the parties; or

(d) the tribunal considers that reasons given in summary form would not sufficiently explain the grounds for its decision;

and in those circumstances the reasons shall be given in extended form."

There was here a request by a party, Mr Pendry. He was named as a party in the IT1 and he had responded with an IT3, and the request for the full reasons was plainly made after the hearing. Was that request, of 1st September, made before the decision of 17th July had been sent to "the parties"? Well that must mean all the parties. Now we do not know when the decision was sent to Mr Richmond, if it was. We do not know when it was sent to Mr Pendry, if it was. It may have been sent to Sugar Ray's Wine Bar, but that is totally irrelevant as that description is neither a description of a person nor of a party. We do not know whether it was sent, if it was sent, or when it was sent, to Messrs Preece, Falconer or Heatherley. So it may be, and we only say "may be", that Mr Pendry's request was within 10(4)(c)(i). Even if it was not, it may be within 10(4)(c)(ii). We therefore permit the matter to go to a full hearing on the only point before us.

It may indeed be appropriate for other reasons to have the matter fully considered inter partes because at the moment there appears to have been a substantive award against Sugar Ray's Wine Bar, which, as we have said already a number of times, is not a person and not a party. We cannot emphasise too much the wisdom of Mr Pendry and his fellow respondents seeking professional advice in order to sort out what has become a really rather fatuous muddle.

Mr Basu, for the appellant, has also taken a point in relation to an earlier letter of 25th July saying that, properly understood, it was a request for extended reasons. We do not go into that, but as the matter is going to a full hearing, we will not stop that point being considered if it has to be.

We allow the matter to go to a full hearing. We shall see to it that the EAT shall write to the Industrial Tribunal asking whether and if so when the Industrial Tribunal sent Notice of Decision of 27th June 1997 to each of the following respectively -Richmond, Preece, Falconer, Heatherley and Pendry - so that when the matter comes back, if it comes back as a full hearing, the EAT will be properly informed on the subject of what notice was given to the parties, as the Rule requires. With that observation we permit the matter to go to a full hearing.