United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR SHORT (OF COUNSEL) UNDER ELAAS ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT AND THE APPELLANT IN PERSON


 


JUDGE WILKIE: This is an appeal by Mr Ibrahim against a decision of the London North Employment Tribunal after a hearing which took place on the 4^th May 1999, embodied in a decision dated 9^th June, that he was not an employee of the Respondent, within the meaning of section 230(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996.

1. That decision constituted a bar to the claims which he was making and, consequently, his applications were dismissed. Mr Ibrahim appealed against this decision by Notice of Appeal dated 21^st July on the simple basis that the findings of the Tribunal were so perverse that no reasonable tribunal would have made such findings of fact. He was invited to provide further and better particulars of his Notice of Appeal and he did so in a document which spans some 5 pages and which was received by this Tribunal on 23^rd August 1999. In that document he went through the Respondent's witness statement, paragraph by paragraph, indicating where he had accepted what she had said and where it was in issue.
2. That document was enclosed with a letter of 19^th August sent to the Registrar which drew attention to new evidence which he had obtained since the 4^th May and which he submitted would have had a decisive effect on the Tribunal's decision. Those documents are referred to in the expanded Notice of Appeal and annexed to it was a bundle of letters dated 30^th June 1993 from the Respondent respectively to. The Department of Employment and the Appellant.
3. In addition Stephens Innocent, the solicitors who acted for Mr Ibrahim until very recently, submitted a Notice of Appeal to this Tribunal which was received by it on 17^th November. That Notice of Appeal set out the following grounds. Firstly, that the Tribunal had failed to give any or any adequate reasons for concluding that he was not an employee. Secondly, that it failed to make it clear that it understood the issues before it and thirdly that it failed by its reasons to enable the Appellant to know why his claim had failed. Fourthly, it made an allegation that the finding of the Tribunal was perverse and set out in five sub paragraphs the basis for that submission. Fifthly it asserted that the Tribunal had failed to take any or any proper account of the Appellant's evidence. Finally it too raised the question of new evidence referring to the two letters to which we have already referred. Those letters were appended to that Notice of Appeal. Those solicitors also submitted a skeleton argument which expanded upon the various grounds of appeal to which reference was made in their Notice of Appeal.
4. At the hearing of the appeal, Mr Short of ELAAS addressed us using as his template the Notice of Appeal and the skeleton argument provided by Stephens Innocent. The decision of the Employment Tribunal set out, in paragraphs 1 to 8, a series of findings of fact. It is implicit from that exercise that the evidence which they accepted was the evidence consistent with those findings of fact and the evidence they rejected was the evidence which was not consistent with those findings fact. The fact that they do not say why it was that they rejected evidence of Mr Ibrahim to the extent that it was inconsistent with those findings of fact, does not, in our judgement constitute a good ground of appeal. The findings of fact make it clear to Mr Ibrahim what the underlying facts were upon which the Tribunal then went on to consider the issues of law and came to their conclusions. They did so in paragraphs 9 and 10 in terms which, in our judgement, make it clear both that they understood the issue which they were considering and that they applied their findings of fact to those issues in an entirely proper manner. It is said that their conclusions were perverse. It is certainly right to say that their conclusions were that the relationship between Mr Ibrahim and Miss Hecht was unique in their experience and concluded that it was not relationship of employer/employee, but was one of close friendship.
5. The Tribunal concluded that here was no contractual intent. In our judgement in so deciding they applied the correct factors in considering whether on balance their was a contract of employment. Accordingly in our judgement they did not err in law nor were they perverse in rejecting Mr Ibrahim's contention. On the contrary it was a decision which recognised the unique nature of the relationship with which they were dealing and drew conclusions in relation to that which they were entitled to draw on the findings of fact which they made.
6. Having seen the statement made by Miss Hecht, we can see no reason to conclude that the findings of fact were anything other than findings properly made on the evidence which was before the Tribunal. The fact that Mr Ibrahim disagrees with some of those conclusions is not, in itself, a ground for an appeal. We have considered whether the new documents referred to throughout the Notices of Appeal would sensibly have made any difference had they been before the Tribunal even assuming, in Mr Ibrahim's favour, they were not reasonably obtainable by him in advance of the hearing. We conclude that they would not have made any difference as they simply point up one of the fundamental findings of fact namely that throughout the period Mr Ibrahim was drawing benefit whilst performing tasks for which he was receiving no remuneration. Those letters seem to us to be entirely consistent, at any rate at the time that they were written, with the situation thus being set up. Furthermore, findings of fact of the Tribunal were that subsequently there were offers by Miss Hecht to pay Mr Ibrahim, no doubt inconsistent with the arrangements envisaged in those letters, but that it was Mr Ibrahim who rejected the offers of remuneration in the terms which were set out in paragraph 7 of their decision.
7. Mr Ibrahim, having placed reliance on more than one occasion on the new evidence which he says is highly relevant to this appeal, sought in addressing us this morning, after Mr Short had completed his submissions, to have us look at a further raft of documents which he said he had received after the hearing and which he said would persuade us to finding in his favour on this appeal. He sought to infer that the Registrar of this Tribunal had misled him as to the basis upon which he should submit new evidence.
8. We have considered that and we find that suggestion to be wholly unfounded. In his letter of 19^th August, to the Registrar he makes specific reference to the two letters which he proposed to rely on as new evidence. There is no indication in that letter of any understanding on his part that what he was being invited to do was to send in a couple of his best documents on the understanding that he would be free to introduce any other documents at the hearing. Accordingly, we reject that as an argument put forward by Mr Ibrahim at this very late stage.
9. It therefore follows that, in our judgement, this decision of the Tribunal was one which did properly address the issues. It did indicate the findings of fact that it made. It did set out its reasoning, having directed itself correctly as to the law, and it did make findings of fact to which it was entitled to come on the evidence. The decision was such as to enable Mr Ibrahim to see why it was that the Tribunal concluded that his relationship with Mrs Hecht was not one of employer and employee. We appreciate that Mr Ibrahim finds it difficult to accept this decision, but in essence that is all that his appeal amounts to. There is nothing in the new evidence which he has put before us, which in any way invalidates the decision of that Tribunal.
10. Our conclusion, therefore, is that not-withstanding the best efforts of Mr Short and the submissions of Mr Ibrahim, this is an appeal which has no reasonably arguable point in it and therefore we dismiss it at this stage without requiring it to go to a full hearing.