United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MS MARY STACEY (of Counsel) ELAAS


 


JUDGE HICKS QC: We have been very much helped by Ms Stacey's presentation of this appeal. We propose to send it forward for a full hearing, but confined to certain points being, effectively, the ones which Ms Stacey put forward. There will have to be an amended Notice of Appeal confining the grounds to those points, for which we shall give reasonable time which can be discussed later.

The points which are to go forward are as follows, I express them not in precise terms because that can be left to the amended Notice of Appeal. There are three. The first is the failure of the tribunal to make findings as to the effect of the disability which they accepted Mr Edwards to be suffering from and the extent of his impairment in relation to his ability to carry out on the one hand his normal day to day activities and, on the other, his work responsibilities. The second is that the tribunal ignored the medical evidence called by the applicant, in so far as it differed from that called by the respondent. The tribunal of course was entitled to prefer one to the other, but they gave no reason, however brief, for rejecting the applicant's medical evidence. The third is that there was no consideration, despite the finding of a substantial disadvantage following from Mr Edward's disability in comparison with persons not disabled, whether the employer should have made any and if so what reasonable adjustments in accordance with s.6 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. There was a fourth point which Ms Stacey advanced, which arises under paragraph 6 of the first schedule to the Act, but as Mr Edwards very properly and fairly concedes that point was not taken below, in the sense of being argued - there may have been evidence which may have been relevant to it, but as we understand it it was not argued below and therefore on the usual principles it is not a matter which can amount to an error of law on the part of the tribunal.

[After discussion]

The amended Notice of Appeal is to be served within 28 days. The application for Chairman's Notes is not, as we understand it, pursued and we agree that they are not necessary. There should be skeleton arguments on both sides filed and served seven days before the hearing. The case is to be listed for one day, Category C.