United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	No appearance by or for the Appellant
For the Respondent	MR A ROLT Representative Managing Director Telegraph Management Ltd Telegraph House Compton West Sussex PO18 9NL


 


JUDGE COLLINS CBE

This is an appeal against the decision of the Registrar on 15 October 1999 refusing an application for an extension of time for appealing against the decision of the Employment Tribunal. The appeal was in fact lodged 2 days late.

The decision of the Employment Tribunal was given on 13 July 1999 when it dismissed Mrs Howarth's claim that she had been constructively dismissed. She was the House Manager of a block of retirement apartments. It was held that there had been no breach of contract by the employer and that she had resigned for other reasons.

In her Notice of Appeal, dated 24 August and received here on 26 August, she complains that the entire proceedings before the Tribunal were vitiated by the conduct of the Chairman, She alleges that the Chairman had formed a view of the case before it started which was immovable, that he was unpleasant and continued to interfere throughout the case and restricted her ability to ask questions or to call evidence and that he behaved well towards the Respondents and badly towards her.

I note that the Tribunal gave its extended reasons in some 5 pages and that there is nothing in the Notice of Appeal which gives any clue to the Appellant's case as to why any of those reasons were wrong. She restricts herself to dealing with the conduct of the Tribunal and does not enter upon the merits of the Tribunal's decision in any way. The explanation given for the delay in appealing is set out in a letter sent to this Tribunal; by that stage the Appellant was represented by solicitors although she had conducted the case before the Tribunal in person. What was stated was that she consulted the solicitors on 14 July, which is the day she received the Tribunal's extended reasons, that on 27 July the solicitors requested the appeal form from this Tribunal which they received on 3 August. They had a meeting again with the Appellant on 4 August. On 9 August the solicitors wrote to witnesses who had been present, asking for their statements. Those statements were received on 16 August and thereafter the Notice of Appeal was drafted. However there were staff shortages because of holidays and illness, which substantially reduced the operating capacity of the solicitors, the typing was delayed and as a result the appeal was submitted too late. The position was exacerbated by the fact that the solicitor in charge of the case was away from the office.

The principles governing applications for leave to appeal out of time to this Tribunal were set out in the case of United Arab Emirates v Abdelghafar [1995] I.C.R.65 by Mummery J. Suffice it to say that I propose to follow those principles. I do so in the context, as Mummery J. pointed out that the time for an appeal to this Tribunal at 42 days is generous. The time for an appeal to the Court of Appeal is 28 days. There is therefore a heavy burden of explanation on an Appellant who is unable to process his appeal within the time allowed. That which has been submitted in this case is in my judgment simply inadequate. It is quite clear from the history that the solicitors knew on 4 August at the latest what the nature of the appeal was to be. The Appellant had been to see them on 14 July when she received the extended reasons, they saw her again on 4 August. They must have known by that date that her complaint was about the way in which she had been dealt with by the Chairman of the Tribunal. I can quite see that it was of importance to the continued conduct of the appeal that the solicitors should gather in any supporting evidence that was available. It is inconceivable that they needed the supporting evidence in order to draft a Notice of Appeal and submit it. The Appellant must have known what her case was in sufficient detail for the appeal to be processed and it can not have been necessary to wait until the statements of the witnesses were in to draft the Notice of Appeal. Apart from that the explanation seem to me to me inadequate. If the nominated solicitor was away from the office in the days leading up to 24 August, then it seems to me that ordinary prudent practice in the solicitors office would involve arrangements to deal with matters which had to be dealt with timeously. It said that there were delays in typing the Notice of Appeal, but looking at it, it would have taken somebody about 10 minutes. It is very difficult to see, bearing in mind that the date for serving the Notice of Appeal should have been diarised in the solicitors office, why somebody could not have found 10 minutes to type it up and despatch it. The fact that the delay is only one of 2 days and that there may be little or no prejudice to the Respondents is for the reasons given by Mummery J. not sufficient to justify allowing the short extension of time that would be necessary. I have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the decision of the Registrar on 15 October to refuse an extension of time was correct and I accordingly dismiss this appeal