Mr S Wawrzyniak v Venatu Recruitment Group and Tophat Industries Ltd: 2602044/2022
JUDGMENT
The complaint that the claimant was unfairly dismissed is struck out.REASONS
[2]Section 108 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 requires a claimant to have not less than two years service to make an unfair dismissal complaint.[3]The claimant was employed by the respondent for less than two years.[4]Therefore the claimant is not entitled to bring such a complaint.[5]The claimant has failed to give an acceptable reason, despite being given the opportunity to do so, why the complaint should not be struck out.[6]Accordingly, the complaint of unfair dismissal is struck out. The claimant’s other complaints are not affected by this judgment. Employment Judge Broughton Date: 26 September 2022 Case No: 2602044/2022 EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS Claimant: Mr Stefan Stanford (formerly Wawrzyniak) Respondent: Tophat Industries Limited[1]By letter dated 18 October 2023 the Claimant made an application for reconsideration of the Judgment dated 11 October 2023, which had been sent to the parties on 15 December 2023. The rules on reconsideration[2]Rule 70 of the Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure 2013 days: “A Tribunal may, either on its own initiative (which may reflect a request from the Employment Appeal Tribunal) or on the application of a party, reconsider any judgment where it is necessary in the interests of justice to do so. On reconsideration, the decision (“the original decision”) may be confirmed, varied or revoked. If it is revoked it may be taken again.”[3]The requirement that a judgment may only be reconsidered where reconsideration is necessary in the interests to justice reflects the public interest in the finality of litigation. There must be some basis for reconsideration; the process is not an opportunity for a party to provide further evidence or to seek to reopen matters which the Tribunal has determined.[4]Rule 72 explains the process to be followed on an application for reconsiderations under rule 71, which says: (1) An Employment Judge shall consider any application made under rule 71. If the Judge considers that there is no reasonable prospect of the original decision being varied or revoked (including, unless there are special reasons, where substantially the same application has already been made and refused), the application shall be refused and the Tribunal shall inform the parties of the refusal... (3) Where practicable, the consideration under paragraph (1) shall be by the Employment Judge who made the original decision or, as the case may be, chaired the full tribunal which made it;[5]The Tribunal has discretion to reconsider a judgment if it considers it to be in the interests of justice to do so. Rule 72(1) requires the judge to dismiss the application if the judge decided that there are no reasonable prospects of the original decision being varied or revoked. Otherwise, the application is dealt with under the remainder of Rule 72.[6]In deciding or not whether to reconsider the judgment, the tribunal has a broad discretion, which must have regard not only to the interests of the party seeking the reconsideration, but also to the interests of the other party to the litigation and to the public interest requirement that there should, so far as possible, be finality of litigation.[7]The reconsideration rules are not intended to provide a dissatisfied party with an opportunity to re-litigate matters that have already been litigated, or to reargue matters in a different way or adopting points previously omitted (Liddington v 2Gether NHS Foundation Trust UKEAT/0002/16/DA).[8]The contents of the application demonstrate that the Claimant is a disappointed litigant and is seeking to have a further attempt at re-arguing his position having had a full opportunity at the hearing. The Claimant has not argued an identifiable error of law. The application does not raise any new information or that w hich he could not have been raised at the hearing which would make reconsideration necessary in the interests of justice.[9]In the circumstances the application for reconsideration is rejected on the basis that there is no reasonable prospect of the judgment being varied or revoked. The application for reconsideration is therefore refused.