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United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Richmond v Rac Insurance Brokers Ltd [1992] UKEAT 47_91_3009 (30 September 1992) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/1992/47_91_3009.html Cite as: [1992] UKEAT 47_91_3009 |
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At the Tribunal
Before
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE WOOD MC (P)
(AS IN CHAMBERS)
Transcript of Proceedings
JUDGMENT
Revised
APPEARANCES
For the Appellant MR JONATHAN SWIFT
(Of Counsel)
Messrs Jacksons
1-15 Queen's Square
Middlesbrough
Cleveland
TS21 AL
MR JUSTICE WOOD (PRESIDENT): This is an application made ex-parte for an Order that the learned Chairman be asked for his Notes of Evidence in a case which was heard before an Industrial Tribunal at Middlesbrough on the 24th October 1990 under the Chairmanship of Mr Cato.
The Applicant was a Mrs Richmond, who was represented by a Mr Trenouth of the Darlington Citizens' Advice Bureau. The Respondents were represented by Mr Bacon their Divisional Manager.
The Decision of the Industrial Tribunal indicates in paragraph 2:
"This case does not depend upon the resolution of conflicts of fact which relate to particular incidents. It depends primarily on the evaluation of events and the credibility of the explanations offered for them."
The Applicant, started to work in July 1982 for the Respondents RAC Insurance Brokers Ltd; in July 1988 she became ill. Mrs Richmond discovered she was pregnant and there were complications about her pregnancy. She returned to her employers and discussed her return to work. There was clearly some correspondence to which reference is made by the learned Chairman in the Decision in paragraph 3(d), and that correspondence was before the Tribunal.
That correspondence will be before this Court when it considers the appeal, and that correspondence, as I have been told, and I suspected it, concerns the fact that Mrs Richmond decided to resign from her employment and to re-apply for a part-time post, as opposed to a full-time post. It was therefore thought to be irrelevant.
The case was presented on the basis that the act of discrimination, it was a sex discrimination case, was concerned with the application for the part-time employment, and not with of being forced to resign, or anything of that nature. The Tribunal proceeded therefore, on the basis that the act of discrimination was the application for employment.
There was a majority decision, the facts are all set out very carefully indeed. The point made by Mr Swift for the Appellant, Mrs Richmond (the majority having decided against her) is that he needs the Notes of Evidence in order to present his appeal.
His appeal, in a nutshell, is that the Tribunal failed to consider the circumstances surrounding the resignation before the application for part-time work. The circumstances seem to be contained in the correspondence, which will be before us. There seems no doubt that she did resign, but it was also, quite clearly, not considered to be relevant in the way in which the case was being put by the Applicant before the Industrial Tribunal.
The second basis upon which the notes are sought is because it is argued that the inferences drawn from the evidence were unsound, and indeed, perverse, and that the conclusions were not those to which the Tribunal could arrive. As to those last two grounds it is not suggested, as I understand it, as it would need to be in order to present a point of law, that any findings of fact were not supported by the evidence, nor that any findings of fact were in the teeth of evidence to the contrary, usually in the form of documentation. So that we have here the issue, namely, that the Tribunal failed to take into account a set of circumstances which is probably common ground existing, and that is the nub of the case. Thereafter any perversity allegation, or any error of law, would have to be based on the recognised grounds and not by a perusal of the evidence at this juncture.
I am quite unable to see that it is reasonable in the circumstances of this case, bearing in mind the pressures on tribunals, and on the Chairmen, to order the Notes of Evidence to be produced. It is not the function of the Notes of Evidence, simply to see whether there is a ground of appeal. It is for Appellants to produce their grounds of appeal and then for us to see whether we need burden the learned Chairmen by asking for the Notes of Evidence. I am satisfied here, that they are not necessary for the proper conduct of this appeal and of the hearing of that appeal. This application is dismissed.
