Meek v City of Birmingham District Council [1987] EWCA Civ 9

EWCA-Civ
Meek v City of Birmingham District Council
[1987] EWCA Civ 9 · 1987-02-18
(Transcript of the Shorthand Notes of the Association of Official Shorthandwriters Ltd., Room 392, Royal Courts of Justice, and 2 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, London, W.C.2).MR. F. PHILPOTT (instructed by Messrs. Middleton Dummer & Co.) appeared on behalf of the Appellant. MR. P. ELIAS (instructed by the City Solicitor's Department) appeared on behalf of the Respondent.

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THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS : I will ask Lord Justice Bingham to deliver the first judgment.

LORD JUSTICE BINGHAM :

This is an appeal by Mr. Alan Meek against a decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal given on the 1st May, 1986. On that day the EAT allowed an appeal by the City of Birmingham District Council against a decision of an Industrial Tribunal that Mr. Meek had been unfairly dismissed. The EAT ordered that the matter should be remitted to a differently constituted Industrial Tribunal for a re-hearing. The EAT refused leave to appeal, but leave to appeal was later given by this court.Mr. Meek was a driver, whose duties included the delivery of material to building sites. It appears, not surprisingly, to be clear that he was not permitted to help himself to building materials belonging to the Council, nor to use the Council's vehicles for his own purposes. The Council took the view that he had broken those rules, and on the 21st December, 1984 suspended him.There followed a disciplinary hearing on the 3rd January, 1985, conducted by a Mr. Hopkins, who was a Principal Assistant in the Direct Labour Office of the Council. The hearing was evidently adjourned on the 3rd January, 1985 while Mr. Hopkins made further inquiries. It was resumed on the 16th January, 1985. A decision was then taken to dismiss Mr. Meek, that decision being notified to him by letter on the same day.There was, according to the Council's procedure, an appeal against that decision to dismiss, which was heard on the 9th September, 1985, but Mr. Meek's appeal was dismissed.The case was heard by the Industrial Tribunal on the 20th September, and the decision was registered on the 20th November, 1985. By that decision the Tribunal held that Mr. Meek had been unfairly dismissed and ordered that he be re-engaged.On appeal to the EAT against that decision a number of criticisms were made of the reasons which the Industrial Tribunal had given for its decision. In the course of the EAT's judgment, given by Mr. Justice Popplewell, a series of detailed criticisms was made of the reasons given by the Tribunal. It is I think for present purposes sufficient to refer only to the summary of the EAT's reasons where Mr. Justice Popplewell said this:
"We have considered the submissions made on both sides and finally have come to the conclusion that this decision is indeed flawed by the wrong application of the tribunal to the questions which they had to ask themselves, by the absence of factual determination which would have enabled the parties to know what it was that they could or should have done, and by the introduction of matters which do not seem to us to have particular relevance to their decision. "
It is unnecessary, I think, to say anything about the first and third of those reasons. Argument in this court has concentrated on the second, namely that the decision of the Industrial Tribunal lacked the factual determination which would have enabled the parties to know what it was that they could or should have done, and we have been referred to authority on the question of the extent to which IndustrialTribunals are required to give reasons for their decisions.The overriding rule on this subject is in these terms:
"The decision of a Tribunal shall be recorded in a document signed by the Chairman which shall contain the reasons for the decision."
It has on a number of occasions been made plain that the decision of an Industrial Tribunal is not required to be an elaborate formalistic product of refined legal draftsmanship, but it must contain an outline of the story which has given rise to the complaint and a summary of the Tribunal's basic factual conclusions and a statement of the reasons which have led them to reach the conclusion which they do on those basic facts. The parties are entitled to be told why they have won or lost. There should be sufficient account of the facts and of the reasoning to enable the EAT or, on further appeal, this court to see whether any question of law arises; and it is highly desirable that the decision of an Industrial Tribunal should give guidance both to employers and trade unions as to practices which should or should not be adopted.Nothing that I have just said is, as I believe, in any way inconsistent with previous authority on this subject. In UCATT v. Brain [1981] I.C.R. 542, Lord Justice Donaldson (as he then was) said at page 551: "Industrial tribunals' reasons are not intended to include a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the case, either in terms of fact or in law ... The reasons are then recorded and no doubt tidied up for differences between spoken English and written English. But their purpose remains what it has always been, which is to tell the parties in broad terms why they lose or, as the case may be, win. I think it would be a thousand pities if these reasons began to be subjected to a detailed analysis and appeals were to be brought based upon any such analysis.

This, to my mind, is to misuse the purpose for which the reasons are given."

A further statement was made by my Lord in Alexander Machinery (Dudley) Ltd. v. Crabtree [1974] I.C.R. 120, and these observations are cited by Lord Justice Eveleigh in Varndell v. Kearney & Trecker Marwin Ltd . [1983] I.C.R. 683
"It is impossible for us to lay down any precise guidelines. The overriding test must always be: is the tribunal providing both parties with the materials which will enable them to know that the tribunal has made no error of law in reaching its findings of fact? We do not think that the brief reasons set out here suffice for that purpose."

Lord Justice Eveleigh adds the comment at page 694G:

"He is not, as I read that judgment, saying that in every case all these points to which I refer must be adhered to, otherwise there will be an error of law in the decision of the tribunal."
Lastly, in Martin v. Glynwed Distribution Ltd . [1983] I.C.R. 511 at page 520F, my Lord said:
"The duty of an industrial tribunal is to give reasons for its decision. This involves making findings of fact and answering a question or questions of law. So far as the findings of fact are concerned, it is helpful to the parties to give some explanation of them, but it is not obligatory. So far as the questions of law are concerned, the reasons should show expressly or by implication what were the questions to which the industrial tribunal addressed its mind and why it reached the conclusions which it did, but the way in which it does so is entirely a matter for the industrial tribunal."
Judged by those yardsticks, the decision of the Industrial Tribunal did in this case, as the EAT rightly held, fall far short of the minimum necessary. There was no account of the basic story of what had occurred, there was no statement anywhere in the reasons of what the Council believed the employee to have taken of the materials belonging to them or of the nature and the circumstances in which they believed him to have misused their vehicle. There is no account of the questions put to him or the answers given. There is no detailed account of the investigation which was made or of the investigations which, in the judgment of the Tribunal,the Council should have made and did not make. There are various criticisms expressed without any statement of .the basic under lying facts upon which those criticisms were based.I find myself wholly in agreement with the view of the Employment Appeal Tribunal that this decision was indeed flawed and that it was appropriate that further consideration should be given to the matter by a differently constituted tribunal. For my part, therefore, I would dismiss the appeal.

LORD JUSTICE RALPH GIBSON : I agree.

THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS : I also agree.

(

Order

Appeal dismissed with costs not to be enforced without the leave of the court. Legal aid taxation of the appellant's costs)

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