United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	THE APPELLANT IN PERSON


 


JUDGE WILSON:-

1. This is a preliminary hearing of the proposed appeal by the Applicant against the dismissal by the Employment Tribunal sitting at Exeter last year. of his application alleging the breach of contract.
2. Mr Purvis claims breach of contract in that he was summarily dismissed because none of the references that he had given had arrived back. However, in addition, a referee not named by him had been taken approaches and their reply to be adverse (although subsequently it was admitted to be wrong). He was summarily dismissed.
3. He also complains that the grievance procedure which he activated was not operated as it should have been by the company's own standard.
4. We consider that the matter should proceed to full argument, not on the grounds set out in the document submitted by Mr Purvis and dated 10^th October 1999, but upon the following 3 questions:-

(i) whether it was a breach of contract to seek a reference from a source other than the sources given by the Applicant to the Respondent and before answers had been received from those references given by the Applicant

(ii) Whether it was a breach of contract to act upon adverse information which proved to be erroneous from an unauthorised referee without given the Applicant an opportunity to deal with that information.

(iii) Whether or not the grievance procedure was correctly followed by the Respondent company and, if not, whether that fact should have affected the view taken by the Employment Tribunal.