Strongfarn Management Ltd v Tomlin [1995] UKEAT 1030_94_0203

EAT

Strongfarn Management Ltd v Tomlin

[1995] UKEAT 1030_94_0203 · 1995-03-02

MR JUSTICE BUCKLEY: This is a preliminary hearing on an appeal against the decision of the Industrial Tribunal in September of last year held at Southampton . It was actually on 30 August. The Respondent had rendered cleaning services at some flats and the short point is whether the Appellants who clearly engaged her to do that and accepted she was owed some money for the period in question, engaged her solely in its capacity as agents or whether in engaging her it incurred personal liability.

As a question of law, an agent can of course incur personal liability. It depends entirely on the circumstances of how he conducts himself in relation to the other party. That assessment is really an assessment of the circumstances and the evidence of the agreement and the Chairman here seems to us to have recognised that and adopted the right approach in law.

He refers to two letters which passed between the parties in particular and at paragraph 23 says;

"I have examined the correspondence which the Respondents have written and it is quite clear that the Respondents were taking on personal liability. In the letters of 15 April and 1 June 1994, the Respondents make it quite clear that they are assuming liability for the Appellant's employment."

We have not seen those letters although in a earlier paragraph at nine there is this quotation from the April letter;

"We would be willing to carry on your employment at the current rate of £15 a week."

That is all we know of the letters. It seems to us that the Chairman has adopted the right legal approach. He directed his mind to the right question and that is the exchanges between the parties and whether the Appellants were taking on personal liability or simply acting and making it plain they were not personally liable but the Respondent would have to look to someone else for payment.

He had considered that question and reached a very clear answer to it. That seems to us to be a matter of assessment of the evidence. Even if we were to reach a different view, we are not saying we would for a minute, but even if we would have done, it would not have assisted the Appellants because it is for the Tribunal to assess the evidence, not us.

His approach in law seems to have been correct and the only other point is that we do not feel it in any way appropriate to speculate as to what is in those letters other than is found in the facts. The Appellants seek to raise this appeal and have not seen fit to place them before us nor have they attended. That puts us in the position of simply looking at the Chairman's findings and we can see no fault in those in point of law and this appeal is dismissed. Thank you very much.