United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	THE APPELLANTS BEING NEITHER PRESENT NOR REPRESENTED


 


MR JUSTICE KEENE: This is a preliminary hearing of this appeal to see if any reasonably arguable point of law is disclosed by the grounds of appeal. It is an appeal against a decision of an Employment Tribunal sitting at London (North) and entered on the Register on 29th March 2000. There has been no appearance by the appellants this morning, but the tribunal has been informed by them that they do not intend to appear because they wish to save the cost of the travel expenses and they are content that this Appeal Tribunal should deal with the matter on the basis of the documents before us. We propose to do so.

1. The hearing itself before the Employment Tribunal was attended by neither of the appellants. They had written in advance indicating that they could not afford the travel expenses. Despite being informed by the Employment Tribunal that they could claim travel expenses, and subsequently that a travel warrant would be issued, there was still no appearance by them. A letter from Mr Chaplin, written on behalf of both appellants, asked that the matter should be dealt with on the papers by the Employment Tribunal and that is what happened.
2. The applications arose because of a transfer of undertaking from a company called Charles Airey Consultants Plc to the present respondents. The Employment Tribunal merely had before it such information from the appellants as was contained in the Originating Application. From that, it was clear that the appellants had been asked to attend an interview with the respondents at their office and to fill out employment forms, but that the appellants did not see why they should do this. They consequently did not attend the respondents' office or fill out the forms.
3. The respondents in their Notice of Appearance denied any dismissal of the appellants. They stated that Mr Chaplin had said that he would call one of the members of the respondents' staff back but that no call was received by the company on that day, but subsequently a message was left on an answer-machine stating that the appellants did not require an interview and that they did not want to stay with the respondent company.
4. The Employment Tribunal in its extended reasons said:

"3. … There is an issue as to whether Mr Chaplin and Miss Chaplin were dismissed and the burden of proving this rests upon them. They did not attend the hearing and have not discharged that burden."

5. That conclusion seems to us to be one which is not open to sensible challenge. There could not be any true complaint here of constructive dismissal since the actions on the part of the respondents were reasonable ones in seeking to interview their prospective new employees. We can find no argument of law which is disclosed by the Notice of Appeal in this case and in those circumstances it must follow that this appeal is dismissed.