United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR OWEN Owen Builders Civil Engineering Ltd First Floor 144-146 East Barnet Road New Barnet Herts EN4 8RD


 


JUDGE D M LEVY QC

1. This is an appeal by Owen Civil Engineering Ltd ("the Appellant") from a decision of the Employment Tribunal sitting in London South on 8 November 1999. The Respondent to the appeal, Mr O'Callaghan, (the "Respondent") was an employee of the Appellant; he claimed that he had been unfairly dismissed.
2. When the matter came before the Tribunal the Appellant did not attend and was not represented; the Tribunal heard the case in his absence, it did look into the contents of the Appellant's IT1 and heard evidence from the Respondent and two witnesses. It determined that the Appellant unfairly dismissed the Respondent and ordered that the Appellant to pay £1,119.49 in compensation to the Appellant. The decision was promulgated on 11 February 2000.
3. From the decision the Appellant has appealed by Notice dated 16 December 1999. The ground of the appeal was that responsible Director of the Respondent, Mr David Owen, was not able to attend on the day appointed for the hearing and had sought an adjournment which was wrongly refused. Mr Owen represents the Appellant today on the ex parte hearing of the Appellant's appeal
4. We have seen the correspondence relating to the application for an adjournment. It shows that on 21 October 1999, the chairman of the Appellant wrote to the Tribunal saying that he had commitments and with his current workload he was not able to attend any hearings prior to 5 January 2000. The Chairman replied to that through the Regional Secretary on 26 October, refusing his request, which was for a considerable delay. The letter stated that Tribunals were set up to deal with cases speedily and this hearing must take priority over other engagements.
5. A follow up letter was written by the chairman on 2 November saying that what the Tribunal said was one-sided, and that he was only asking for a few weeks delay and went on to say:

"If the hearing goes ahead on the 8^th November without my attendance, then I reserve the right to appeal against any decision made against me, so I can state my case."

That was replied to on 4 November, alas the letter reached the chairman after the hearing date when no one appeared for the Appellant.

6. From that decision we have listened to the submissions made by Mr Owen on behalf of the Appellant. In essence he said the company had been denied a hearing and this was unfair. We have considered that, although Mr Owen has not mentioned it to us, whether the Human Rights Act might assist the Appellant. However we take the view that when a trial date is given, giving reasonable notice to the parties, justice delayed is justice denied. When a party gives what a Tribunal reasonably believes are inadequate reasons to attend a hearing on the day notified or for several weeks thereafter, particularly in a small case such as this, the refusal to adjourn the hearing was a proper exercise of discretion.
7. In the circumstances none of us think that there is a point of law to go forward to a full appeal and we will therefore dismiss this appeal at this stage.