United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR M MORRISON (Solicitor) Messrs Gorna & Co Solicitors Virginia House Cheapside King Street Manchester M2 4NB


 


MR JUSTICE CHARLES: The parties to this appeal are a Mr Layton and the Blackpool Football Club Ltd. The matter comes before us by way of Preliminary Hearing today.

1. The appeal is against a decision of an Employment Tribunal sitting at Manchester, the Extended Reasons for which were sent to the parties on 22 July 1999. The decision was in the following terms:

"1. the applicant was unfairly dismissed;

2. the applicant only had a 50 per cent chance of retaining employment had the respondents acted fairly."

Then there are quantifications of the damages.

2. The Notice of Appeal has been professionally drafted and we have also had the benefit today of a skeleton argument prepared by the Solicitor for the Appellant which expands and explains the matters raised in the Notice of Appeal.
3. The first point raised in the Notice of Appeal is whether or not the Employment Tribunal erred in law in deciding that the reason for the dismissal was redundancy. If the Appellant succeeds on that ground the argument would then go that there was no statutory reason and the 50 per cent reduction that was found falls away. That takes one to paragraph 15.4 in the skeleton argument.
4. Paragraphs 15.5 onwards in the skeleton argument deal with the case on the premise that the Employment Tribunal were correct to find that the reason for dismissal was redundancy. As to these the grounds of appeal the Appellant relies on the cases of Steel Stockholders (Birmingham) Limited v Kirkwood [1993] IRLR 515 and King v Eaton Limited (No.2) [1998] IRLR 686.
5. We have concluded that the grounds of appeal, as reflected in paragraphs 15.5 to 15.8 of the skeleton argument, raise points that are reasonably arguable.
6. We have listened to the argument in respect of the first points described in paragraph 3 hereof and have considered at some length whether or not we should allow them to proceed to and be argued at a full hearing. We have decided that we should because:

(a) if we did not this might disrupt the flow of argument going to the second point might disadvantage the Appellant, and

(b) it seems to us that by allowing those first limbs of argument to go through we will not be adding greatly to the length of the appeal.

7. If those had been the only grounds, we might have thought longer and harder about whether or not the matter should proceed to a full hearing.
8. We will invite the Chairman to provide Notes of Evidence of the Appellant but limited to his evidence relating to his prospects under his new employment and compensation. We understand that this will be notes of cross-examination because his evidence in chief was in a statement.
9. That leaves the issue of categorisation and time estimate. We give this appeal Category B and a time estimate of a day.