United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

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


 


MR JUSTICE CHARLES:

1. We have before us today by way of preliminary hearing an appeal brought by a Mr Lofinmakin. The parties to the proceedings are the Appellant and Currie Motors Ltd who were the Respondent before the Employment Tribunal.
2. The appeal is against the decision of an Employment Tribunal sitting at London North and is limited to a failure of the Employment Tribunal to order costs pursuant to rule 12 of their rules. That rule gives the Employment Tribunal a discretionary power to orders costs in certain limited circumstances which in global terms can be described as when a party has acted unreasonably or worse. Our jurisdiction is limited to correcting errors of law.
3. The Notice of Appeal says this, in paragraphs 2, 3 and 4:

"2. On 8 October 2000, the Appellant was dismissed without any previous warning and without any opportunity to defend himself.

3. The Appellant challenged his dismissal and in a unanimous decision dated 18^th July 2000, the North London Employment Tribunal held, inter alia, that the Respondents had breached the Appellant's contract of employment by dismissing him without notice and ordered them to pay damages of £187.11. But no costs order was made [and he refers to a decision].

4. The Appellant is appealing against the failure of the Tribunal to make a costs order under rule 12(1) of the 1993 rules having regard to the unreasonable behaviour of the Respondents in failing to settle the matter out of court."

4. It is not apparent from that, or indeed from the Extended Reasons that, any application for costs was made which is why I referred at the beginning of this judgment to the failure to make an order rather than to a refusal to do so. We will however assume in favour of the Appellant that an application was made and refused.
5. The order for damages of £187.11 relates only to part of the claim that was before the Employment Tribunal. This appears from their decision which is at the beginning of the Extended Reasons which run to some 13 pages. That is in the following terms:

"The unanimous decision of the Tribunal is that:

1. The Applicant has leave to amend his claim to include a claim for unauthorised deductions under Section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.

2. The Respondent has made an unauthorised deduction from the Applicant's wages and the Respondent is ordered to pay £40.00.

3 The Respondent breached the Applicant's contract of employment by failing to pay expenses and is ordered to pay £1.20.

4 The Respondent breached the Applicant's contract of employment by dismissing without notice and is ordered to pay damages of £187.11.

5 The Respondent did not unlawfully discriminate against the Applicant."

6. As is apparent from the Extended Reasons the vast majority of the time before the Employment Tribunal was taken up in dealing with the decision recorded in subparagraph 5 relating to discrimination. The contractual issues are dealt with at page 11 of the Extended Reasons with conclusions at pages 12 and 13 of those Extended Reasons.
7. It seems to us that there were arguments that could reasonably be advanced by the Respondent on the notice claim and the other breach of contract claims and in any event, I repeat, those claims took up only a very small part of the hearing.
8. We have waited through the morning for Mr Lofinmakin to appear on this appeal but he has not done so. Contact has been made with Solicitors who have acted for him in the past and they have indicated to our staff that they are not clear whether they are still instructed or not.
9. We have to say that we regard this as one of the more ambitious appeals that we have seen. We can see no justification for asserting that the Employment Tribunal erred in law because they either (1) did not of their own motion order costs, or (2) refused an application that was made for costs in respect of this matter even though no reasons for any such refusal appear in the Extended Reasons, the reasons are obvious having regard to the nature of the power to award costs.
10. To our mind it is plain that there is no reasonably arguable point on this appeal and we therefore dismiss it.