Pitman v David Hill & Co [1992] UKEAT 518_91_1003

EAT
Pitman v David Hill & Co
[1992] UKEAT 518_91_1003 · 1992-03-10
MR JUSTICE WOOD (PRESIDENT): This is a Preliminary Hearing of an Appeal by Mr Pitman from a Decision of an Industrial Tribunal sitting at Exeter on the 15th July 1991 under the Chairmanship of Mr Owen David.The Originating Application was dated the 16th May 1991; it alleged unfair constructive dismissal and attached to the Originating Application was a substantial body of particulars with dates and allegations contained in that document.The unanimous Decision of the Tribunal was that the application should be dismissed. As a preliminary matter Mr Pitman had asked that the case should be heard in camera and the Tribunal decided so to do. The reason for that is that this was an accountant's practice and it was thought desirable that the names of the clients of that practice should not be bandied around in public.Mr Pitman appeals to this Tribunal but has indicated that he would not be appearing here today. We have read all the documents in the index which number from 1-62, and all the arguments and submissions made by Mr Pitman in that documentation. An Appeal lies to this Tribunal under Section 136 of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 which reads as follows:

"An Appeal shall lie to the Appeal Tribunal on a question of law arising from

any decision of, or arising in any proceedings before, an industrial tribunal under, or by virtue of, the following Acts -(a)the Equal Pay Act 1970; (b)the Sex Discrimination Act 1975; (c)the Employment Protection Act 1975; (d)the Race Relations Act 1976 (e)this Act;

[(f)the Wages Act 1986]"

We look therefore, to see, whether there was any error of law in the Decision reached by the Industrial Tribunal.The facts of the matter can be stated quite shortly, indeed they were, very largely, common ground between the parties. The evidence which was relevant to the actual Decision started with Tuesday, 30th April 1991. In his application Mr Pitman set out a verbatim account of what occurred and the Tribunal deal with the facts very shortly in this way. They say:
"In essence, what he says is that he was enraged by a criticism which Mr Hall had passed on to him: a criticism which had been made by a client of the firm. Furthermore, he indicates that he was resentful of the way that Mr Hill had treated him the previous Thursday.
Mr Hill then produced a letter dated 25 April 1991 which was in essence a warning letter. Mr Pitman agrees that it was only a warning letter. He says that when he was given the letter he said to Mr Hill:-`I am not going to accept any written warning from you'.

To which Mr Hill replied:-

`Don't you want it then?'

Mr Pitman then said:-

`Not particularly, but I might as well read it'.

Having read it he threw it down in disgust, saying:-

`What a load of rubbish, this is tantamount to constructive dismissal'.

Mr Hill then asked:-

`What do you mean? Constructive dismissal - are you resigning?'

Mr Pitman said:-

`You have made it completely impossible for me to work for you any longer. Will you send me on your P 45. I am going back to the office to collect my personal effects. As far as I am concerned this is not the end of the matter.'"As the Tribunal commented Mr Pitman clearly indicated then that he was considering bringing the matter before an industrial tribunal.Those are the very brief facts as found by the Tribunal. They gave themselves a perfectly correct direction on the law and concluded in paragraph 7 and 8 as follows:
"We have considered this evidence and we are unanimous in concluding that there was no dismissal in this case. We do not think that anything that Mr Hill did justified Mr Pitman in resigning and we can see no evidence that Mr Hill in any way was in breach of his contract. Indeed, we accept his evidence that he was not in the least bit anxious at that time that Mr Pitman should leave his employment.
In the circumstances, we find that there has been no dismissal, and in those circumstances the application today must be dismissed."Mr Pitman sought a Review and the Review was conducted and a decision reached on the 30th August 1991 by Mr Owen David, the Chairman. The basis for the Review was that the Applicant wished to draw attention to certain evidence which was submitted to the Tribunal before the hearing. That evidence consisted of copies of correspondence between the Applicant and the client of the Respondents for whom the Applicant had been working prior to resigning his employment.The Tribunal point out that there was this request for a hearing in camera and then say this in paragraph 3 of the Review Decision:
"The Tribunal read the correspondence in question but felt that it was irrelevant to the issues that they had to decide because it all post-dated the resignation. As the applicant did not refer to the correspondence at the hearing, either in his evidence or in his submissions, the Tribunal ignored it when reaching their Decision.

In the circumstances, it is not appropriate to grant a review."

In his Appeal to us, which is a Notice of Appeal dated the 30th August 1991, Mr Pitman reiterates the complaint that he was making when seeking a Review. He indicated that he wished to reserve details of this Notice of Appeal until after the Review hearing, but in essence he is complaining that the Tribunal did not take into account all that correspondence which was filed with the Industrial Tribunal some seven days before the hearing of the case on the 15th July 1991. He tells us in his Notice of Appeal what was in that correspondence and he points out various matters alleging that there had been a breach of confidentiality and a breach of the terms of his Contract of Employment.All those matters, could have been raised, or were raised before the Tribunal. In so far as they were not raised at the original hearing, the learned Chairman, Mr Owen David clearly considered them all when deciding to refuse the Review.We end up, where we started, by reiterating that it is only if there is an error of law the Tribunal, in effect, has adopted a wrong principle of law that we are able to interfere with those matters which were before it. All issues of fact are for the Tribunal, in this case we are quite unable to discern any error of law. The facts were decided against Mr Pitman but in the main seem to have been common ground between the parties.It follows therefore, for those reasons, that this Appeal must be dismissed at this stage, and it is.