Coop & Anor v Bass Brewers Ltd [1993] UKEAT 194_93_0710

EAT

Coop & Anor v Bass Brewers Ltd

[1993] UKEAT 194_93_0710 · 1993-10-07

MR JUSTICE KNOX: This is an appeal by Messrs Colin Paul Coop and Norman Skelton from a decision enshrined in a letter from the Regional Office of the Industrial Tribunal at Leeds which was dated 18th February 1993 and said this:

"Your letter of 12 February 1993 was referred to the chairman who has refused your request for full reasons.

Yours faithfully"

The request contained in the letter of 12th February said this:

"I acknowledge receipt of the Decision in respect of the above cases, today [12th February] and note from your compliment slip that you have already forwarded me the decision on 14th January.

I have not received your original correspondence; the Decision received today is my first sight of this document.

I would be grateful if you could now please send me the full written reasons/decision."

There is another sentence which I need not read.

The background was that there was a hearing before the Industrial Tribunal on a claim for unfair dismissal by Messrs Coop and Skelton against the Respondents, Bass Brewers Ltd, who do not appear today, and that occurred on the 26th November of 1992. The Tribunal, in fact, dismissed the applications of each Applicant, and held that they were not unfairly dismissed. We are not today concerned with whether that decision was right or wrong. We are solely concerned with the giving of reasons for that decision.

The Summary Reasons were sent to the parties, it would appear, on the 14th January 1993. But as appears from the request of the 12th February 1993, which I have read, from the Applicants' Union District Organiser, they did not carry to the Applicants' representative. They, in fact, wrote in on the 4th February saying this:

"I attended a Tribunal on the 26th November 1992, representing the above two applicants. Can you please inform if you are in a position to send me the Written Decision."

That letter is of course only reconcilable with there not having been an effective postal delivery of the Summary Reasons when they were sent on the 14th January. It is not the letter of someone who has decided not to anything about the Summary Reasons or who has in some way decided to ignore them.

One then has the request that followed on the 12th February because there had been, as that letter indicates, a compliment slip sent enclosing the Summary Reasons on a date which is not precisely in evidence but obviously was between the 4th and 12th February. One then has the two letters that I have already read. There are no reasons at all given for refusing the request for Full Reasons. The rules on the subject in the "Industrial Tribunal (Rules of Procedure) Regulations 1985" provide for Full Reasons to be given in various particular circumstances. The rule is Rule 9, and the primary obligation on an industrial tribunal is of course to give Reasons, Rule 9(3) says:

"The tribunal shall give reasons, which may be in full or in summary form, for its decision."

and Rule 9(5) reads, so far as relevant, as follows:

"Where:- (b) the reasons have been given in summary form and it appears at any time to the tribunal that the reasons should be given in full; or (d) such a request is made in writing within 21 days of the date on which the document recording the reasons in summary form was sent to the parties;

the reasons shall be recorded in full in a document signed by the chairman."

That phrase "such a request" refers back to (c), which I did not read, and is a request that the Reasons be given in full.

So that there are two main relevant grounds, or occasions, upon which Full Reasons should be given by the Chairman. One is, if it appears at any time to the Tribunal that they should be so given, and the other is that a request in writing is made within 21 days of the date on which the document recording the Summary Reasons were sent. It just so happens that the 21 days expired either on or immediately before the day when the representative of the Appellants wrote his first letter on the 4th February asking whether he could have the written decision, and a benevolent construction might perhaps be, that that should be regarded as a request made in writing for the Reasons in full. But whether or not that be right, it does appear to this Tribunal, that in the context of the total absence of any reasons for refusing to give Full Reasons, there really is no answer to this appeal. This is all the more so in that for an appeal to be launched to this Tribunal there have to be lodged the Full Reasons and an appellant who is deprived of the Full Reasons is effectively deprived of the machinery wherewith to appeal the decision. We are of course not expressing any opinion on whether or not the substantive appeal will succeed, that is not a matter for us today, but in a case where it is clear that there is a very strong case for supposing that the Summary Reasons miscarried and never reached the appellants, there is an absolute necessity for there to be a positive reason for refusing to give Full Reasons when a request is made in the context of an enquiry as to the decision within the permitted period of 21 days. In our view not only is this a decision which it is hard to justify on the particular facts it also is contrary to the welcome trend of requiring, at any rate, a short statement of the reason for any particular exercise of the discretion by the Industrial Tribunal. That there was such a discretion is clear from the extracts from the rules that I have read. There really should have been some statement of why the refusal was made.

Therefore, for those two reasons, first that there is no reason given at all and secondly that this was eminently a case where the discretion really could only be exercised in the opposite way, we allow this appeal and direct that Full Reasons be supplied to the Appellants.