Saffin v Save & Prosper Group Ltd [1993] UKEAT 757_93_0410

EAT

Saffin v Save & Prosper Group Ltd

[1993] UKEAT 757_93_0410 · 1993-10-04

MR JUSTICE KNOX: This is an appeal in an interlocutory matter. The Order appealed from was contained in a letter dated 26th August 1993 in answer to applications made by Mr Saffin on behalf of his wife, who is the Applicant in the Originating Application, for a postponement of a hearing date.

The original hearing was in May of this year but unfortunately it came to an abortive conclusion because a close relative of the advocate for one of the parties fell ill and as a result of that unfortunate and entirely fortuitous circumstance the hearing was not completed. It obviously became important that there should be a new date fixed and negotiations to that end ensued. The Applicant, Mrs Saffin, through her husband Mr Saffin who has appeared before us today, agreed to a hearing on a date in September but that proved unacceptable to the Industrial Tribunal itself because it was not convenient for the Chairman and so that agreement was abortive.

The Applicant, again through her husband, wrote a confidential letter setting out some, but very few, details of the impossibility that he, Mr Saffin, felt in appearing in the last few months of this year and although I, as the Chairman of this Tribunal, have seen the contents of that letter my fellow Members have not. I feel no embarrassment about that because I do not propose to decide this case in the light of that letter, more especially because the Respondents to the appeal, the Respondents to the Originating Application, have not seen it either. It does not in fact, I can say having read it, reveal anything very significant over and above what is already said in the first letter in the bundle of correspondence that is before the Tribunal and which the Respondents have seen. What is in that letter is this (this is Mr Saffin writing to this Tribunal):

"I wrote several letters to the Tribunal explaining that the timing was completely out of the question for ourselves due to a certain extremely sensitive operation in which, I in particular, was involved with a law enforcement agency."

and that in a sentence, without any details, encapsulates what Mr Saffin's difficulty is.

The fixing of the date for the further hearing from the 7th to the 13th October 1993, was made in the light of and adversely to the representations made in a letter sent by Mr Saffin on the 4th July 1993 when he made it clear that he had some free time between May and the end of September, but and I quote:

"from October to the end of January this is an impossibility it seems"

In spite of that the Industrial Tribunal took the view that the dates that I have mentioned, the 7th to the 13th October, should be fixed and notice was given to that effect to Mr Saffin who renewed his application initially attempting to do so on a confidential basis which the Chairman, properly in our view, refused to consider unless the Respondents could be shown what the application was. The reason that is given for refusing a postponement is in paragraph 2 of the letter under appeal as follows:

"The Chairman is of the view that the interests of justice require that the hearing of the part-heard proceedings should be completed on the dates fixed and that the Applicant's representative has given no good reason why a postponement should be granted."

and in the light of that the application for postponement was refused.

This Tribunal has considered these circumstances and we have come to the conclusion that that is a wrong approach in principle, because it does seem to us that in a case where there is an unfortunate postponement, for which no one can be blamed, the interests of both parties where the case is part-heard, do require that there should be very considerable flexibility in ensuring that the representation at the continued hearing, remains the same. The difficulties if the representation changes hardly need elaborating, and whatever the rights and wrongs of the reasons for Mr Saffin's failure to give precise details as to what he was up to which made it impossible for him to attend, it was not in our view right to disregard them altogether which is what we find is really done when one says that he had given no good reason why a postponement should be granted. That seems to us erroneous in principle and that is compounded by the circumstance that Mr Saffin did in fact agree to an earlier date which was inconvenient to the Tribunal itself. We make no criticism as to that latter circumstance but it does compound the difficulty in refusing the adjournment that was thus asked for.

In our view this appeal should be allowed and the hearing now fixed for 7th to 13th October should be stood-over to a date to be fixed in the light of this judgment by the Industrial Tribunal.