Williamson v. St George's Healthcare NHS Trust [2000] UKEAT 1322_99_0911 (9 November 2000)

JUDGMENT JUDGMENT © Copyright 2000 APPEARANCES For the Appellant MR W PANTON (of Counsel) Messrs Ceres & Co Solicitors 8 Arlington Parade Brixton Hill London SW2 1RH For the Respondents MISS M TETHER (of Counsel) Messrs Bevan Ashford Solicitors 1 Chancery Lane London WC2A 1LF JUDGE WILSON : This has been the hearing of the full argument of the appeal by the original applicant against the decision of the Employment Tribunal sitting at London (South) on 4th, 5th and 6th May, 31st August and 1st September 1999. Their unanimous decision was that the applicant's complaints of racial discrimination and unfair selection for dismissal failed and should be dismissed. Another division of this Appeal Tribunal on a preliminary hearing ruled that the matter should go forward for full argument on the question whether the appellant should have been treated as a long-serving member of staff and therefore susceptible to the redundancy policy and if so whether the failure by the respondent Trust to do so was because of racial reasons. In the judgment on that occasion it was noted that the other division of the Appeal Tribunal had had put before it by Mr Panton on behalf of the appellant, a policy statement on implementing change, redeployment, re-training and redundancy, which was a policy statement by the respondent Trust and which was in operation at the material time. In a sentence, Mr Panton's case was that the appellant should have been dealt with under the terms of that policy and not on the basis upon which she was dealt with. Having heard and listed to the arguments presented by Mr Panton, on behalf of the appellant, and by Miss Tether in response, on behalf of the Trust, we answer the questions firstly, in the affirmative and secondly in the negative. In other words, our answer is that the appellant should have been treated as a long-serving member of staff and was therefore susceptible to the redundancy policy but that the failure so to treat her was not by reason of racial discrimination. This case must therefore, in our judgment, be remitted for trial by a differently constituted tribunal solely on the issue whether the appellant had been unfairly selected for dismissal by reason of redundancy. In our judgment the Employment Tribunal fell into error because it failed to ensure that its extended reasons for its decision would make it clear to the parties why they had won or lost. In this case, so far as dismissal is concerned, the appellant is left not knowing why she lost for two principal reasons. First, there is no regard apparently paid to the policy document to which I have referred already, despite the fact that a paragraph at the beginning of the extended reasons, paragraph 3, is a paragraph devoted to setting out those documents to which reference was made in the course of the hearing. Secondly, the decision of the tribunal concerning the Deputy Services Manager's job we find wholly unsatisfactory. It is dealt with in two places in the extended reasons, but in particular paragraph 40. That paragraph concludes by stating: "The Deputy Service Manager post had been offered to Mr Dhanji and he did not communicate his decision not to take up the post until the last day of the Applicant's employment. In those circumstances it was not unreasonable for that post not to be offered to the Applicant." In our judgment the second sentence is a total non sequitur and leaves the appellant not knowing why she was not offered that post which became available on the last day of her employment. Similarly of course she was not offered posts which arose within days or weeks of her dismissal. Because the matter is to be remitted, we consider that the less we say about the facts the better and we shall say no more. To that extent, therefore, this appeal succeeds. The application for leave to appeal by Miss Tether on behalf of the respondent Trust, so far as this tribunal is concerned is refused. BAILII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback | Donate to BAILII