United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR W V LOWE (in Person)


 


JUDGE PETER CLARK: By two Originating Applications the Appellant Mr Lowe, brought a total of three separate complaints before the Employment Tribunal, unfair dismissal, racial discrimination and breach of contract.

The consolidated applications came before a Tribunal sitting at Southampton on 6 August 1998. The unfair dismissal complaint was stayed pending the outcome of the Seymour-Smith litigation, the Appellant having completed less than two years continuous service with the Respondent, Sovereign Housing Association Ltd ("Sovereign"). The claim of racial discrimination against Sovereign and Mr Oliver the Assistant Company Secretary and the Appellant's line manager was dismissed, as was the breach of contract claim. The Tribunal's decision was promulgated with Extended Reasons on 18 August 1998.

The material facts found by the Tribunal are set out in paragraph 3 of their reasons. In summary, the Appellant commenced employment with Sovereign as Development Finance Officer on 1 July 1996. He had previously worked for them under an agency contract for some three to four months prior to that date.

Sovereign were based in Newbury. The Appellant's home was in Billericay, Essex. His wife, who is Afro-Caribbean worked as a Housing Officer for a London Housing Association. Sovereign provided a relocation package to new staff and although that package normally only applied for a year, it was agreed at the time of his appointment that it would remain available until the year 2000.

In February 1997, following the retirement of the Assistant Director of Special Projects, Mr Harrison, that employee's duties were distributed amongst existing members of staff including the Appellant.

He alleged that it was indicated to him in February 1998 his position would be reviewed and he would receive back pay for the year 1997-98 to reflect his additional duties. The Tribunal found that there was no agreement between the parties to increase his salary. In these circumstances, that breach of contract claim failed.

As to the claim of racial discrimination, the Appellant alleged that Mr Oliver had misled him as to the question of a pay increase so that he would get into debt (which he did) and then be unable to move to Newbury with the result that his wife who is black would not be able to apply for a post with Sovereign. That argument was rejected by the Employment Tribunal, which said that if the Appellant's case is right, the discrimination was a devious plot in the extreme. There was not a shred of evidence they could see which could support it.

Further, the Appellant relied on a remark made by Mr Oliver in a discussion with him about comments which he had made on a document prepared for the Equal Opportunities Group. The remark was "well, you must look at it from my side of the fence". That, said the Appellant, indicated that Mr Oliver was motivated against blacks. That argument was also rejected by the Tribunal, as was any suggestion that the Appellant's eventual dismissal on 23 March 1998 was on racial grounds.

In this appeal, Mr Lowe submits, first that the Tribunal were wrong in law in failing to recognise that a verbal contract existed in relation to his pay review. We accept the proposition that a binding contract may be made orally as well as in writing. The difficulty in this case is that the Tribunal found clearly on the facts that no such agreement was made between the parties, such as to entitle the Appellant to a salary increase or damages for failure to pay such an increase.

Secondly, he says that the Tribunal ought to have found that the Respondent was in breach of its contractual obligation under the contract of employment to progress a grievance, which he raised on the 18 March 1997. The Tribunal deal with that point in paragraph 3(p) of their reasons, where in relation to that letter they find that the Appellant did not specifically say that the document was a grievance and it is obvious that it never occurred to the Respondents that it was. It was a letter written to Mr Oliver and the principal concern of the Respondents was that it accused the Respondents and Mr Oliver of deceit. We have read the Appellant's letter of 18 March, it does not in any way indicate that it is a formal grievance under the Respondents grievance procedure and it seems to us that the Tribunal were entitled to make the finding that it did, that this was not in fact something being actioned under the contractual grievance procedure.

So far as the complaint of racial discrimination is concerned, Mr Lowe asserts that he was deceived by his line manager as to a future pay increase and that the line manager's purpose in so doing was to prevent him and his family moving to Newbury. That was a matter which the Tribunal had to deal with as a question of fact. We have earlier referred to their observation, that there was not a shred of evidence to support the conspiracy of the plot which was advanced by the Appellant. That it seems to us is essentially a question for the fact finding Tribunal and not for us.

We have endeavoured to explain to Mr Lowe that our jurisdiction is limited to correcting errors of law. He asserts that there are errors of law in this Tribunal's reasons, that justice has not been done, that legal issues remain to be resolved and that the case was not properly dealt with by the Employment Tribunal. We reject each and every one of those submissions. In our judgment, this appeal discloses no arguable point of law and accordingly it must be dismissed.