United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	MR B THOMAS (of Counsel) Instructed By: Messrs Meade King 24 Orchard Street Bristol BS1 5DF


 


JUDGE A WAKEFIELD:

1. This is an ex-parte preliminary hearing of an appeal by B G Limited and S N against a compensatory award in favour of Ms E J B, made by an Employment Tribunal sitting at Bristol on 21 June 2001. By their decision sent to the parties on 16 July 2001, the Employment Tribunal ordered the first Appellant to pay to the Respondent the sum of £9, 700.79 inclusive of interest under the provisions of section 65(1) of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, that sum comprising £5398, 10 for injury to feelings and the balance being for loss of earnings from the time of the ending of the employment of the Respondent to the date of the compensation hearing. The second Appellant was ordered to pay to the Respondent a total of £1079.78, all being in respect of injury to feelings under the same provision of the Act.
2. The grounds of the appeal are two-fold. Firstly it said that the Employment Tribunal were wrong in law in failing to give proper directions prior to the hearing, in particular as to the medical evidence which could be relied upon by both parties. As to this ground, we are not satisfied that any error of law is made out. The Appellant's solicitors wrote three times to the Employment Tribunal in advance of the hearing, referring to directions which they sought. No response was apparently received from the Tribunal and no directions were given. In fact, however, the Appellants received the advanced notice of the medical evidence of the Respondent which they had been seeking and never raised at the hearing the failure of the Employment Tribunal to respond to the letters or to give the directions requested, nor did the Appellants ever seek to have the Respondent examined by their own medical expert. That ground of appeal therefore is not one which we consider ought to go forward.
3. The second ground of appeal is as to the loss of earnings award which was based on the whole period up to the date of the hearing, rather than, as the Appellants argue should have been the case, the period ending in January 2001 when the Respondent had started a new job. She was apparently dismissed from that job within a few days, having failed to disclose to her new employer her medical history. The Appellants argue that this was a break in the chain of causation of her loss.
4. We consider that this point is arguable and will allow the appeal to proceed to a full hearing on this point only. We put the appeal in category C, we give it a time estimate of one hour and we order that skeleton arguments be prepared and served on the Tribunal and on the other party, not later than 14 days in advance of the hearing.