United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	NO APPEARANCE OR REPRESENTATION BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT


 


MR COMMISSIONER HOWELL QC: In this case which is before us for a preliminary hearing Mr Angel Maria Barrenechea seeks to pursue an appeal against the decision of the Sheffield Employment Tribunal, set out in Extended Reasons sent to the parties on 22 November 1999, at pages 4 to 10 of the appeal file before us.

1. The Employment Appeal Tribunal has this morning received a letter from Mr Barrenechea saying that, unfortunately, he cannot attend today's hearing for reasons which he gives, but that he is happy to let us hear and deal with the case in his absence. This we accordingly do since we are satisfied that all the relevant issues for us to consider appear sufficiently clearly from his original Notice of Appeal dated 20 December 1999 at pages 1 to 3 of the appeal file, and the further letter dated 20 March 2000 and supporting documents which he annexes to the letter saying that he is unable to attend.
2. The case before the Tribunal, brought by Mrs Rosemary Catherine Black, was a complaint that she had been unfairly dismissed from her employment as a bar person and manager in a club of which the Appellant before us, Mr Barrenechea, turned out to be the owner after an earlier question of whether her complaint was brought against the right Respondent had been resolved. Mr Barrenechea attended before the hearing at the Tribunal with an associate of his, against whom the proceedings had originally been brought, and was joined as Respondent by the Tribunal on the basis of his Notice of Appearance dated 25 October 1999, at pages 22 to 23 of the appeal file.
3. As the Tribunal in their very clear statement of reasons recorded, the proceedings arose out of a row which developed between Mrs Black and her employers one night at the club, as a result of which (according to Mrs Black) she had been told to get out and never come back again; and (according to Mr Barrenechea and his associate) she had marched out, throwing the keys at them after a good deal of obscene language for reasons which were unjustified, so that they considered she had not been dismissed at all but had simply walked out.
4. The Tribunal went into the evidence about these not very edifying events and found in favour of Mrs Black and against Mr Barrenechea. There was a direct conflict of factual evidence, and the Tribunal having heard the factual evidence of both sides, believed Mrs Black's version of events. They accepted that she had been directly dismissed by the Respondents and was entitled to compensation which they directed should be quantified at a further hearing.
5. Mr Barrenechea's Notice of Appeal raised two points. First of all, that on the day of the hearing he had had to be at a meeting with Licensing Magistrates on another matter and had therefore been hampered in the way he was able to present the case. Secondly he took issue on various factual points with the evidence given by Mrs Black, which had been accepted by the Tribunal, and added the further allegation that she had been falsifying her wages sheets, although it does not appear that this was an allegation made before the Tribunal at all.
6. Those complaints are amplified and reiterated in the further letter dated 20 March, annexed to the recent letter sent to the Employment Appeal Tribunal, where the point is taken that the Tribunal had come down on the side of Mrs Black on the factual evidence even though she had no supporting witnesses of her own and Mr Barrenechea had, indeed, had witnesses who either did support or would have supported his version of events.
7. Details are further given of a separate claim being made in the County Court against Mrs Black by Mr Barrenechea based on his allegations about wages and the letter concludes that, if those complaints in the County Court are successful, then surely that is proof in itself that her word counts for nothing and that she was lying at the Tribunal.
8. We have considered all this material, but have not been satisfied that it shows any arguable ground to warrant our directing this case to go forward for a full hearing of the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
9. The complaint about the way the hearing was conducted does not, in our judgment, show any arguable ground for saying that the Tribunal behaved unfairly. As the record shows there had been a previous adjournment of the proceedings and the proceedings on this occasion were adjourned by the Chairman until 1.00 pm, (having originally come on in the morning) so that Mr Barrenechea was able to attend; as indeed he did.
10. We do not consider that the complaint made, that there might have been additional witnesses who Mr Barrenechea could have been able to produce, provides any arguable ground of appeal since what he said provides no explanation of why these witnesses could not have attended to give evidence themselves while Mr Barrenechea was dealing with the Licensing Justices, or why their attendance could not have been arranged at the time when Mr Barrenechea himself did attend and took part in the Tribunal proceedings.
11. All the remaining criticisms relate to matters of fact, which it is the province of the Employment Tribunal to decide. Merely because an Appellant disagrees with the factual findings reached by an Employment Tribunal that does not give him any arguable ground of appeal in law for saying that the Employment Tribunal's decision should be set aside by the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
12. Having considered the Extended Reasons of the Tribunal, we are satisfied that this case was given a full and proper hearing and that the Tribunal were justified, on the evidence before them, in reaching the conclusion they did for reasons which they clearly and adequately explained. On that footing there is no arguable ground of appeal in this case and we accordingly unanimously dismiss the appeal.