United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MS J McNEAL (of Counsel) APPEARING UNDER EMPLOYMENT LAW APPEAL ADVICE SCHEME (ELAAS)


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON: The purpose of this hearing is to decide whether there is an arguable point of law in an appeal which Mr Conduit wishes to make against the refusal of an Employment Tribunal to provide extended reasons for the decision which it arrived at following a hearing at Birmingham on 8 and 9 October 1997.

1. Mr Conduit had brought proceedings against his former employers, the Dudley Priority NHS Trust, alleging unfair dismissal. He completed his Originating Application to the Employment Tribunal and in the form provided he identified a representative who was acting for him, namely a Mr John Rider, who was a personal friend and had experience of employment relations matters. After a two day hearing on 8 and 9 October 1997, Mr Rider had completed his work and the Tribunal had indicated orally on the second day at the end of the proceedings that the claim had failed but that a written decision would be sent confirming it in due course.
2. As I understand the position, it was Mr Riders view that Mr Conduit should consider this chapter in his life closed. The reason why, as I understand it, the Applicant had sought Mr Rider's assistance was because he, the Applicant, had been unwell following what might popularly be described as a nervous breakdown, which affected his behaviour and may have been responsible for what he did which led eventually to his employers dismissing him. The Applicant was a clinical psychologist employed by the Trust, a senior position which he had held for some time with distinction.
3. The decision in summary reason form was sent to Mr Rider, because he was the named representative, by the Employment Tribunal on 16 October 1997. In due course, and it was in about March, Mr Rider sent back all the papers to Mr Conduit and included in those papers was the summary reasons for the Tribunal's decision, which we imagine said very much little else than had already been said orally on 9 October. It is clear that there could be no appeal based on the decision in summary reason form and because there is nothing there which would enable anyone effectively to say that the Tribunal had misdirected itself in law.
4. Accordingly, an application was first made by Mr Conduit to the Employment Tribunal for extended reasons on 23 March 1998 and that was refused as I have indicated by the Employment Tribunal by letter dated 24 April 1998. The Tribunal politely indicated that if the Employment Appeal Tribunal required it, then an extended reason decision would be given.
5. It seems to us that the issue on this appeal therefore is whether the Tribunal have erred in law in refusing to provide extended written reasons when the application for them was made some six months after the original hearing and after the summary reasons had been sent to the employee's representative. On that matter, the question before us is whether there is an arguable point of law on that issue. We are not able to say that there is. It seems to us that too much time had flowed under the bridge for it to be fair or reasonable to require the Employment Tribunal to give reasons in extended form from which time would start to run for an appeal here.
6. These Tribunal cases are to be heard as soon as practicable and there is then a generous period for appealing to the Employment Appeal Tribunal. Delays of the sort with which we are dealing now are not acceptable and we consider that the Employment Tribunal was well entitled in the exercise of its discretion to refuse to order extended reasons having regard to the lapse of time which had occurred.
7. In any event it may well be, although we cannot say more than make a general statement, that Mr Conduit would be better advised to put this matter behind him rather than seeking to run an appeal and reopen a painful episode in his life. He seeks to draw a distinction between conduct justifying dismissal on the one hand and conduct caused by illness, which may have justified the dismissal, on the other. The Tribunal had obviously looked at that issue, just judging from the summary reasons. Unfair dismissal appeals rarely succeed in the Employment Appeal Tribunal. We can therefore be reasonably confident that Mr Conduit has lost nothing of value as a result of the appeal in this case being refused as it is. The appeal therefore will be dismissed.