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	United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Stern v Next Retail Ltd [2002] UKEAT 1030_02_1511 (15 November 2002) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2002/1030_02_1511.html Cite as: [2002] UKEAT 1030_02_1511, [2002] UKEAT 1030_2_1511

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APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	Mr A Crabbe Crabbe's Legal Consultancy Little Lodge Hensting Lane Owslebury Winchester


 


THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE ELIAS

1. This is a preliminary hearing to determine whether the appeal of Mr Stern against a Decision of the Employment Tribunal at Reading should go forward to a full hearing. The background, to put it extremely briefly is this, the Appellant was employed by the Respondent Company; he was accused of sexual harassment of certain women. He was suspended, was subsequently interviewed by two women in the company and he indicated at a meeting that he would be willing to resign, but the company refused to permit him to do that, and subsequently he was dismissed.
2. He was not in time to take proceedings for unfair dismissal but made complaint in his Originating Application in which he alleged wrongful dismissal, breach of contract, victimisation and sexual harassment. When the case went to the Employment Tribunal, he indicated in advance that he sought to add a claim for dismissal on grounds of sex, under section 57A of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The purpose of that was of course that he would have been entitled to take that claim, notwithstanding the short period of employment involved.
3. The Tribunal refused that application. The parties then in fact reached an agreement and settled the claim, in circumstances involving a small amount of holiday pay from the company to the Appellant. It is the circumstances in which that settlement was reached which is really the complaint now made to this Tribunal. Mr Stern was represented by Mr Crabbe; he is, he tells us, not legally qualified as such, though he runs a business which is called "Crabbe's Legal Consultancy" and he does, he says, have experience in legal matters, particularly in representing persons before Industrial Tribunals.
4. The Notice of Appeal identifies what it alleges to be certain errors by the Employment Tribunal in the way in which it dealt with this appeal. It is alleged by Mr Crabbe that the Tribunal Chairman said that, in relation to the application to amend, there had been ample opportunity to take further instructions within time, and in relation to the sexual harassment claim, that it had little prospect of success and that the reason for the dismissal was clearly the conduct of the Applicant.
5. He then, it is alleged, said that the written submissions and Skeleton Arguments of the Applicant were of no consequence, and that the authorities were not relevant. He asked the Respondent's representative if withholding holiday pay was allowable under the contract and gave a strong indication to the parties that they should discuss settlement, apparently indicating that the basis of settlement might be the withholding of holiday pay.
6. He apparently also indicated that an Order for costs would be considered. As we have said, as a result of these indications by the Chairman, the parties did in fact reach an agreement and they did so with the Applicant being advised in the way that we have described.
7. We have to say that even assuming the facts to be as stated by Mr Crabbe, we still are very firmly of the conclusion that this manifests no error of law whatsoever. It is perfectly appropriate for a Tribunal Chair to take a robust view of the case before the Tribunal; in this case, that is what the Chair did. They were plainly entitled to refuse the application to amend, to add the new ground out of time.
8. Equally, the Chairman was plainly entitled to say that the harassment claim had little prospect of success, we would say, in fact, nil. The idea that it is sexually discriminatory to be interviewed by two women on the grounds that those complaints relate to sexual harassment has, in our view, no prospect of success whatsoever.
9. The Chairman then focused on what would seem to have been the only issue that can conceivably give rise to any claim in the Applicant's favour and indicated that there may be a settlement on those terms, and there indeed was. We see no reason why it should be said that that involves any improper conduct by the Chairman; it is sometimes the role of the Chairman to seek to bang parties' heads together and resolve a claim, where it appears that that might sensibly be done. For these reasons, we take the view that this does not raise any points of law and should not go forward.