United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	THE APPELLANT IN PERSON


 


JUDGE SMITH:-

1. This is an application to proceed to a full hearing of an appeal by the Applicant employee before the Employment Tribunal, Mrs Castley, against the decision of an Employment Tribunal held at Manchester on 4^th August 1999,of which Extended Reasons were sent to the parties on 23^rd August 1999, whereby the Employment Tribunal held that the Applicant was not dismissed by the employers, St Vincent Housing Association Limited, so that her complaint of constructive dismissal was dismissed.
2. By his decision on 20^th August 1999, sent to the parties on 23^rd August 1999, the Chairman refused the Applicant's request for a review, and although it has not been at all clear from the papers relating to the proposed appeal, it would appear that the Applicant really seeks to appeal against both decisions, both the original decision and the review decision. Mrs Castley has prepared the documentation relating to her appeal herself and she candidly accepted in her argument before us today that they are extremely difficult to follow and we have had some considerable difficulty in fully comprehending the material that she has placed in front of us. We are not intending to be critical of her, she has obviously done her best in difficult circumstances as a litigant in person. We must say that much of what is contained in the documentation is somewhat repetitive and discursive.
3. As we explained to Mrs Castley, we cannot allow an appeal to go forward unless there is an arguable point of law, in other words that the Employment Tribunal either on the original decision or the Chairman by way of the review of the decision has erred in law in some way or another. Now what Mrs Castley is really saying to us today is along the lines that the Employment Tribunal really failed to take on board the nature of her whole case. Her submission to us is that the Employment Tribunal in the light of the evidence that she gave to them should have made findings in her favour to the effect that over a very lengthy period of some 2½ years up to the time when she resigned which was on the 24^th March 1999, she had been subjected to a course of conduct so to speak on the part of the housing association and successive housing officers that amounted to abuse of her and to conduct that amounted to a breach of the obligation to maintain trust and confidence with her and therefore amounted to constructive dismissal.
4. Her complaint to us is that that is the case she put forward before the Employment Tribunal and which they appeared to her not to have reached proper conclusions in respect of. However, we cannot allow such an argument to be placed before us at this stage because, in our judgment, if one looks at the original decision, it appears from the findings of the Employment Tribunal that they did deal with the history of the matter as to what had taken place between the Applicant who was employed as a cleaner/caretaker and the Respondent housing association. The Employment Tribunal dealt with the history as to what had taken place between 1997 and 1998 and they reached a conclusion that the difficulties, such as they were, up until November 1998 had been dealt with by Mr Taylor and they expressed their conclusions in relation to those matters in paragraphs 3 to 5 of their decision.
5. In our judgment what the Applicant, Mrs Castley, is really trying to do here is to attempt to re-open matters which it appears, unfortunately, she may not have properly got across to the Employment Tribunal at the time of the hearing. The Employment Tribunal plainly concluded that the real difficulties that occurred in relation to Mrs Castley's employment centred around what had happened between her and the housing officer, Caroline Hough, on 24^th March 1999 on the occasion of the meeting between them at the Housing Association's offices and the Employment Tribunal reached conclusions, having correctly directed themselves with regard to the law of constructive dismissal, that, although they had some sympathy for the Applicant, there was nothing that had there taken place that amounted to a breach of contract on the part of Caroline Hough and that accordingly there could be no case for constructive dismissal. We repeat that what Mrs Castley is really attempting to do is to have a second bite of the cherry and to re-argue her case before a tribunal on what must be a quite different basis from that which she put before the Employment Tribunal at the original hearing, or at least what the Employment Tribunal reasonably understood her case to be.
6. In that regard we have to note that when it came to the application for a review which was dealt with by the Chairman, there were a number of matters relied upon by Mrs Castley which are set out in a document dated the 4^th August 1999 by way of seeking a review, but none of those matters put forward the burden of what she has put before us today namely that the Tribunal should have taken into account evidence she gave relating to a two and a half year period of being subjected to abuse by successive housing officers and labelled as a thief and so on relating to her duties. Those matters are not contained in that document applying for a review. What is contained there are what the Chairman analysed as five separate points. Admittedly one of the points did relate to the activities of a Mrs Drinkwater, who was one of the tenants, and did relate to some occasion when Mrs Castley complains that Caroline Hough had slammed the door of Mrs Drinkwater's flat in her face. This was at a time when Mrs Castley had been trying to discuss matters with her.
7. That matter was raised on review and was dealt with by the Chairman at paragraph 44 of the review decision. In our judgment, the Chairman dealt with the matter properly on review and reached conclusions which he was entitled to reach in relation to that matter. None of the other matters raised on review encompassed the matters now complained about to the effect that her real case before the Tribunal was never dealt with by the Tribunal. At the end of the day we find that we must agree with the conclusion of the Chairman on the review hearing when he said at paragraph 5 that the only real basis of dissatisfaction here is that of a party who does not agree with the conclusions of a Tribunal. No doubt Mrs Castley had difficulties in getting her case across in the way in which she would have have liked to got it across, but we have to conclude that the Tribunal dealt with the matter properly and reached conclusions of fact on the dispute between Mrs Castley and her employers which they were entitled to reach, as did the Chairman on the review hearing in the light of the matters then placed in front of him. For those reasons we cannot see that there is now any possible complaint by way of error of law on the part of the Tribunal which could allow this matter to proceed further to a full hearing. For those reasons, although we have no doubt Mrs Castley will be disappointed with them, we have had to conclude that this application will have to be dismissed.