A v B [1997] UKEAT 364_97_0707 (7 July 1997)

JUDGMENT PRELIMINARY HEARING © Copyright 1997 APPEARANCES For the Appellant NO APPEARANCE BY OR REPRESENTATION ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT JUDGE J HULL QC : This is an appeal in which a direction has been made that nothing relevant to the proceedings should be published, or made known, which might reveal the name, address or otherwise lead to the identification of the parties. The Appellant is referred to as "A" therefore and the Respondent as "B". A is a lady who comes from overseas originally and B is a very well known multiple store at which she was employed. She was a Sales Assistant. The evidence before the Industrial Tribunal was that she was extremely capable, although she had certain defects and, in particular, was impatient of even constructive criticism. She suffered, tragically, four bereavements in her family in a very short time and she was given a written warning about her behaviour. She was given various transfers arising out of her personal position and attitude and eventually, in 1995, she made serious allegations about other members of staff. That led to various enquiries. She had a meeting with the Managing Director. She had investigations conducted by the General Manager and a further investigation by the Managing Director. As a result of all this she was eventually dismissed. She was told (this was the ground of the dismissal) that she had made unfounded statements of a very serious sort about fellow employees and that she had been intolerably disruptive. She complained to the Industrial Tribunal that she had been unfairly dismissed and that she had been treated in a way which was racially discriminatory, and also that she had been discriminated against on the ground of sex. Those, of course, were serious allegations. All that she said had been taken seriously by the employers and the Industrial Tribunal looked into it very seriously. Clearly, the employers are a firm who are very much concerned with employee personnel relations matters. Clearly, in the view of the Tribunal, they had taken great pains to treat the Applicant with proper consideration and to look into all that she had said, and all that was said against her. Before the Industrial Tribunal it was put like this: "For the Respondent [the employers] Miss McNeill [Counsel] accepted that nothing could be more offensive than the matters of which the Applicant had complained. However to make such complaints without foundation must follow close behind. The Respondent found that there was no genuine grievance against any of the individuals named and found that the Applicant had not been truthful." They considered with great care the allegations of sex and race discrimination. They said they preferred the evidence of the employer's witnesses to the evidence given by the Applicant. They found that the Applicant had misinterpreted a number of things that had happened. They found that one thing had occurred which, to a sensitive person, could seem to be offensive in a racial sense. They found that it was not so intended, that the employee responsible for the behaviour of which complaint was made had apologised, had not intended to cause any offence and regretted sincerely what he had done and that a note had been made on his record and that he had resolved not to do any such thing again. No doubt, such mishaps could happen even in the best run of organisations. The Tribunal found there was nothing in any of the complaints, after (as I say) what appears to have been a most careful enquiry and they therefore dismissed the application. The Applicant appeals. She put in a Notice of Appeal which, with all respect, considering that Solicitors were instructed by her, shows quite hopelessly inadequate grounds. The Industrial Tribunal, she says, "erred in the interpretation and especially the application of the sex and race discrimination, in reaching to the final decision". We have now been told that the Solicitors are not here; that their client has, as they put it, disappeared or gone missing. It may well be that she has gone overseas. She had been missing for a period of about two months they say. They ask us to adjourn the hearing. It seems to us quite wrong to do that. If the Appellant brings an appeal it is her duty to prosecute it and not to go missing without telling her Solicitors about it, leaving them without instructions. In those circumstances, it is proper for them to say that they feel they cannot carry the matter any further without her instructions. If they were to do so they might very well run up costs in a way which they were not authorised to do and perhaps cause her great harm. So the Solicitors are content to write to us and we think, in the circumstances, it has been right for us to consider the merits of the appeal and having heard, for the reasons indicated, nothing from her about it, and this being in our list under our Practice Direction for a Preliminary Hearing, we say that we can find nothing in this appeal, no point of law, and we must therefore dismiss the appeal at this stage instead of allowing it to go to a full hearing. Indeed, we think it would be quite vexatious and unjust to allow such an appeal, in support of which nothing is said, where the Appellant is missing, to go to a full hearing. Those are the reasons of us all. BAILII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback | Donate to BAILII