United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR C WALKER (of Counsel) Instructed by: Messrs Wacks Caller Solicitors Steam Packet House 76 Cross Street Manchester M2 4JU


 


HIS HONOUR JUDGE PETER CLARK

1. This is an appeal by Total Fitness (UK) Ltd, the Respondent before an Employment Tribunal sitting at Manchester under the Chairmanship of Mrs D M Kloss, against that Tribunal's Decision, promulgated with Extended Reasons on 6 June 2003, upholding the Applicant, Dr Prelevic's complaints against the Respondent.
2. The original Notice of Appeal raises five grounds. During the course of submissions before us today, Mr Walker persuaded us that those grounds appearing at paragraph 6 i, ii, and v merited consideration at a full hearing, and we direct that those matters proceed to such hearing. He then realistically withdrew the grounds appearing at paragraph 6 iii and iv, and accordingly, we dismiss those grounds on withdrawal.
3. That leaves one outstanding matter which appears in the document headed "Addendum to Notice of Appeal". The point there taken, by way of an additional ground of appeal, is directed to the Tribunal's finding in their Extended Reasons, at paragraph 8, that a sum of £5400 was a gift to the Applicant and not a loan.
4. We have been referred to a document which, on the face of it, was signed by the Applicant, addressed to the Directors of Mannin Management Services Ltd, not this Respondent, and dated 24 September 2002, at about the time when the Applicant left her employment with this Respondent, in which she appears to acknowledge that that sum of £5400 represented a loan made by that company, Mannin Management Services Ltd, which she agreed she would repay at the rate of £100 per week from 1 November 2002. There are now, we are told, proceedings in the County Court for the recovery of the sum of £5400.
5. The observations by the Tribunal at paragraph 8, that the sum was by way of a gift and not a loan, do not appear to us to bear on any issue in the Tribunal proceedings; specifically there does not appear to have been a formal counterclaim brought by the Respondent in the Tribunal proceedings, indeed had such a counterclaim been brought, it would, on the face of the document to which we have been referred, have inevitably failed because the acknowledgement by the Applicant is of a loan to a different company.
6. In these circumstances, we are unable to see any issue which merits an appeal against that finding, it that be the right word, in the Tribunal's Decision. For these reasons we shall dismiss the additional ground of appeal.
7. So far as the directions are concerned in the remaining grounds of appeal, they will go to a full hearing, with a time estimate of half a day, the parties to notify the Appeal Tribunal in writing, if and so soon as they disagree with such estimate. Category C.
8. The full hearing will take place before a judge and two members and we will give the standard directions for service of an answer and cross appeal, if any, by the Respondent to the appeal, and for the compiling and agreeing of bundles and for the lodging and exchange of Skeleton Arguments, and for the parties to agree a list of authorities and to lodge that list, coupled with copies of any authorities relied on for the purpose of the appeal.

Finally, there will be liberty to the parties to apply.