United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MS B HEWSON (of Counsel) Instructed By: Messrs Margaret Powell & Co Solicitors 26 Brighton Road Rhyl Denbighshire LL18 3HD
For the Respondents	MR M DALE (Representative)


 


JUDGE CLARK: The background to and issues arising in these appeals are fully set out in the judgment which I delivered on behalf of the Employment Appeal Tribunal at the preliminary hearing held on 25 March 1999. I need not repeat what is there set out. This is a directions hearing held to consider the Respondent's application for Chairman's Notes of Evidence and records of submissions made by the Appellant's representative at the substantive hearing which took place before Mr S J Williams' Tribunal on 8 October 1998.

1. The point taken by Mr Dale, who was present at the Tribunal on that occasion, is that the Applicant's case on disability discrimination was advanced solely on the basis of a section 5(2) complaint, and not on the basis of a section 5(1) complaint. Having considered the submissions made both by Mr Dale and Ms Hewson on behalf of the Appellant, it seems to me that it would assist the Employment Appeal Tribunal hearing the full appeal to have the Chairman's notes of the opening statement made by the Appellant's representative at the 8 October 1998 hearing, in order to see precisely how the case was put on behalf of the Applicant.
2. In these circumstances I shall direct that the Chairman be asked to provide his notes of the Appellant's representative opening submissions only. I do not regard it as necessary or indeed desirable to seek further Notes of Evidence for the purpose of this appeal, which of course, is on a point of law only.
3. I should finally add this, in case it is of assistance to the division which hears this appeal finally; I gave my judgment at the preliminary hearing on 25 March 1999. As Ms Hewson points out, it was on the very same day that the Court of Appeal handed down their judgment in the case of Clark v Novacold [1999] IRLR 318. It follows that when we considered this case at the preliminary hearing stage, the state of the law as to the connection between a complaint of failure to make reasonable adjustment under section 6(1), and the dismissal of the complainant was as then set out in the judgment of Bell J in Morse v Wiltshire County Council [1998] IRLR 352, an approach subsequently disapproved in the judgment of Mummery LJ in Clark v Novacold.