United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	THE APPELLANT IN PERSON


 


JUDGE J ALTMAN

1. This is an appeal from the decision of the Employment Tribunal sitting at Southampton on 6 June 2002. The decision of the Tribunal was recorded as follows:

"This application is withdrawn on the Applicant acknowledging that she had been paid the money that was owing to her when she issued the Originating Application."

2. The Originating Application filed on 29 October 2001 made a claim for loss of wages, for payroll administration work - September 2001 and the amount outstanding was set out to be 21 hours at £11.00 and it appears from all we have seen that that was a truthful statement at that time and perfectly accurate.
3. Indeed, the Applicant, Mrs Edwards who appeals to us today contends that there were other matters as well that she would have wished to raise concerning her employment. Indeed, in an application for a review to the Employment Tribunal reference was made that Mrs Edwards had already told Mr Coulton of ACAS that it was the issues and ramification surrounding this, which is a letter to which I will refer in a moment, that she wanted to have brought out in the Tribunal. That letter was from Mr Griffiths of 2 April 2002 referring to associated financial losses which are owed.
4. The Applicant was concerned about those matters and the insinuation that there may be about her. She instanced two things before us. One was the pressure upon her to issue a copy P45 which she regarded as unlawful as a vehicle for potential fraud, and secondly the proposal of payments of wages without signature which concerned her but which were later alleged by the Respondents to simply be the correction of an error which had not been substantiated.
5. Furthermore, the Applicant was concerned that the payment of the moneys outstanding which then followed her Originating Application in the following month in November 2001 took so long and was accompanied by no apology. She was concerned that the decision of the Tribunal furthermore in what it said recorded the wrong sequence of events that might prejudice other proceedings which the Applicant has in mind.
6. It appears in fact that what happened is that after her Originating Application the money was paid that she was owed although had she brought other proceedings she would have claimed other financial relief so that by June 2002 when the matter came before the Tribunal, the money had been paid. It is also true that when the Originating Application for these proceedings was filed the money had not been paid and the proceedings were therefore properly brought by Mrs Edwards.
7. Mrs Edwards read the decision of the Employment Tribunal as a finding that the money had been paid when she issued the Originating Application and it is possible of course to read the decision that way. If one reads it as being that "the application was withdrawn on the Applicant acknowledging that she had been paid the money when she issued the Originating Application" it can be read in this way. That apparent slur upon her proceeding to vitiate the Origination Application has been a matter of grave concern to her. But it seems to us that the critical phrase in the decision is the phrase 'that was owing to her', for it is the money that was owing to her at the time she issued the Originating Application that is being referred to. In those circumstances it seems to us that the way in which that decision is to be read is in accordance with the truth and if there is any ambiguity then we have no doubt that it can clearly clarify by reference to the dates of the Originating Application and the payment of outstanding money.
8. The decision was that the money had been paid and the Tribunal identified and described that money as being the money that was owing when the Originating Application was issued so that grammatical construction is she had been paid the money. The next question is 'What money?' The answer is 'The money that was owing to her when she issued her Originating Application.' Accordingly this matter comes before us as a Preliminary Hearing to identify any error of law on the face of the Tribunal proceedings. The Tribunal could deal with the particular application before them and not any other application that Mrs Edwards had wished to bring.
9. We can sympathise with Mrs Edwards' feeling that there was some slight or criticism of her implicit in the decision. If the decision was suggesting that when she issued her Originating Application far from being owed money that money had been paid but we find that that was not the decision of the Tribunal. The decision of the Tribunal was as we see it to be the truth that she was owed money when she issued the Originating Application. By the time of the Tribunal hearing it had been paid. There was therefore no need for those particular proceedings which were withdrawn and any other proceedings fell outside it.
10. In those circumstances there is no error in this particular proceeding and the appeal falls to be dismissed at this preliminary stage. We hope however that our analysis has been some assistance in understanding that there is clearly no element of criticism or slur, as we can see, on the Applicant in anything she has done in relation to these proceedings.