South Wales Forgemasters Plc v Lundregan [1994] UKEAT 425_92_1502

EAT
South Wales Forgemasters Plc v Lundregan
[1994] UKEAT 425_92_1502 · 1994-02-15

JUDGE LEVY QC:

This is an appeal by South Wales Forgemasters PLC against a decision of an Industrial Tribunal held at Cardiff on 7 January 1992, 16 January 1992, 17 January 1992 and 7 February 1992. At the end of that 4 day hearing, the unanimous decision of the Tribunal was that the Applicant, Mr Lundregan, was unfairly dismissed and he was entitled to a compensatory award of £10,000. The decision was sent to the parties and entered in the Register on 13 April 1992.It is a case of redundancy and it is accepted that the correct question for the Tribunal was whether it was fair in all the circumstances to select the respondent to this appeal for redundancy. Mr Blayney, on behalf of the Appellants, says, and there is a great deal of force in his contentions, that the summary of the Reasons of the Tribunal fail adequately, and perhaps at all, to take into account the valuable evidence that Mr Meacham gave to that Tribunal on the first day of the hearing and he brought our attention to the Chairman's notes of evidence which we find at pages 23-36 of the Bundle.Mr Harrison says in reply that it is quite clear that the Chairman did take that evidence into account. First of all he took a very full note of that evidence and secondly, paragraph 6 of the Decision itself shows on its face that that was taken into account. He refers to the passage in paragraph 6 which reads as follows:
"Mr Meacham's views [that is the gentleman whose evidence is said not to have been taken into account] prior to the meeting were confided to a note somehow obtained by the applicant [he says where it can be found and then quotes from it] "A serious works engineering knowledge void will be created by the dismissal of M.L.[the Appellant]. A.McD [who was the alternative to be dismissed] will be hard pressed to cope in the short term."
After that quotation the Reasons go on:
"Evidently Mr Meacham lost the argument, and although he tried valiantly to defend the board's decision he failed to convince us."
That must be a reference to the evidence he gave. The quotation then goes on:
"(A reference in the document to hub caps still being made for Rockwell also qualifies some of the evidence about machining for that company, and it is clear that some such work still goes on; but this is not crucial to our decision.) The fact that the company has survived without Mr Lundregan is far short of justifying his dismissal as a reasonable course in the circumstances, leaving the clear impression that to drop a manager experienced in this business for may years in favour of someone who worked in a forge for only six months was unreasonable. Getting away with it is no answer, because (a) unwarrantable risks sometimes come off and (b) we do not know that the respondents would not have done better with Mr Lundregan there. Other facts and arguments might have altered our view, which we state generally and not as our prescription for a particular case. Management's decisions are their prerogative and we do not rush to second-guess them; but we have to understand them, and this one we find incomprehensible."
That passage follows from earlier findings as to the treatment of Mr Lundregan in the months before that.We accept Mr Blayney's submission that the Chairman's Reasons could have dealt more fully with the evidence of Mr Meacham but Mr Harrison has referred us to the well-known decision of the Court of Appeal in Retarded Childrens Aid Society -v- Day [1978] ICR 437, and in particular to the passage of Lord Denning, with which the other two learned Lord Justices agreed, at p.442 & 443 of the judgment, and particularly to the passage at 443D where he says:
"It is true that the tribunal did not mention those matters specifically in their reasoning; but it does not mean that they did not have them in mind or that they went wrong in law. I go further. If you read their reasons in a broad sense, it seems to me exceedingly likely that they did have those points very much in mind."
We are satisfied, on balance, that the Tribunal below did have the evidence of Mr Meacham in mind when it reached its decision. We are satisfied that despite the lack of findings of fact, about which Mr Blayney complains, it is a decision which the Tribunal could have come to.We remember that the Appeal Tribunal went wrong in the Retarded Childrens Aid Society -v- Day case because it substituted its views for the views of the Tribunal below. We do not intend to fall into that error and we think, in the circumstances, there is no point of law raised in this appeal and therefore it fails.We do not ignore Mr Blayney's submission that a failure to find facts can make a decision perverse but, as we have said, although the facts could have been more fully recited the failure to recite them does not mean they were not taken into account and, looking at the decision broadly, we are satisfied that they were.In the circumstances the appeal fails.