Harfield v Britax Wingard Ltd [1994] UKEAT 607_93_2701

EAT

Harfield v Britax Wingard Ltd

[1994] UKEAT 607_93_2701 · 1994-01-27

JUDGE D M LEVY QC:

This is an application on a preliminary point as to whether the appeal should go forward by Mr B K Harfield against his former employers, Britax Wingard Limited.

Briefly the facts are as follows: Mr Harfield is a long-time employee of the Company who supplied motor car mirrors, among others, to the Rover Group. A date arrived when an order had to be delivered and it was found below that quite arbitrarily Mr Harfield chose not to do the work which he was ordered to do. The employers summarily dismissed him.

On 10th December 1992 he commenced proceedings for unfair dismissal.

There was a hearing before the Industrial Tribunal in Southampton on the 29th June 1993 and there was a unanimous decision that the application failed. The Tribunal held that the applicant was not unfairly dismissed. The decision was sent to the parties on the 12th July 1993.

A letter setting out proposed grounds of appeal was sent by Messrs Adams Blair Cox, dated 23 July 1993. Miss Priestley, who represents Mr Harfield today, very sensibly abandoned the grounds set out in the appeal other than the ground (c) in that letter. That ground reads as follows:

"The Tribunal did not take into consideration the six years that Mr Harfield worked for the Respondent. Nowhere in the decision is the length of service satisfactorily dealt with. Mr Harfield is looked upon in a decision in exactly the same way as an employee with two years one days work record with the company.

Further the tribunal did not consider Mr Harfield's spotless record marred by this one incident only. The Chairman allowed himself to be influenced by general `mudslinging' allegations made by the Respondent company. Thee were not dealt with in detail and Mr Harfield was not allowed to challenge these and require general allegations to be specified."

We turn to the full Reasons of the Tribunal and we find in paragraph 6 of the Reasons:

"The further point he raises is that, with over 5 years of unblemished service, dismissal was beyond the band of reasonable responses for a reasonable employer."

We turn to paragraph 11 of the Reasons where we find:

"We think Mr Doman's version is correct, that though dismissal is on the tope side, we could not say that it was outside a reasonable band of responses, bearing in mind all the circumstances."

Miss Priestley submits to us that this raises a point of law. In our opinion it does not. It was something which the Tribunal having looked at the facts and carefully considered the appropriate questions reached a response which this Tribunal could not properly interfere with.

In the circumstances although we do not think it proper to allow this appeal to go forward, we thank Miss Priestley very much for her succinct and helpful submissions. The Appeal will be dismissed.