MR E E TANER v GREENWICH LEISURE LTD [2000] UKEAT 1303_99_0310

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
BAILII case number: [2000] EAT 1303_99_0310Case No Appeal No. PA/1303/99Venue 58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS
Between
MR E E TANERAPPELLANTGREENWICH LEISURE LTDRESPONDENT
Before
Mr Justice LindsayDate 3 October 2000
[1]APPEARANCES For the Appellant NO APPEARANCE OR REPRESENTATION BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT For the Respondent NO APPEARANCE OR REPRESENTATION BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE RESPONDENT MR JUSTICE LINDSAY (PRESIDENT) This is an appeal by Mr E. E. Taner in the matter Taner –v- Greenwich Leisure Ltd .. Mr Taner appeals against the Registrar's decision to strike out the appeal. Mr Taner does not appear, nor he is represented in any way. It is now 2.22 in the afternoon; the matter was listed to come on at 10.30. No one appears and I understand that some communication has been received indicating that Mr Taner did not intend to appear or be represented, nor is there any representation on the part of the Respondent.[2]The chronology is that on 24 May of last year an IT1 was lodged by Mr Taner complaining of "equal opportunity". On 15 June of last year, Greenwich's IT3 resisted that, saying, amongst other things:
"The Applicant applied for and was interviewed for a post of Sessional Catering Assistant on 19 th May 1999 and he was unsuccessful due to his lack of knowledge and experience in the catering services. The Applicant was advised in writing that he had not been successful"
[3]On 23 August of last year, there was a hearing at the Employment Tribunal, and on 17 September last year the decision was sent to the parties and the claims of Mr Taner were dismissed and, indeed, he was required to pay something towards the Respondent's costs.[4]The decision was a unanimous decision of the Tribunal; it was that the Applicant's claims of sex and race discrimination were dismissed. The Applicant was ordered to pay £50 towards the Respondent's costs.[5]On 14 October of last year, a Notice of Appeal was received from Mr Taner. I am not intending to say this is in criticism of Mr Taner, and still less in any mocking sort of way, but it has to be said that the Notice of Appeal is virtually inarticulate in relation to paragraph 6, which is in printed form and begins with the words:
"6. The grounds upon which this appeal is brought are that the industrial tribunal erred in law in that " and then there are brackets which say: (here set out in paragraphs the various grounds of appeal) What appears - it is not easy to read, it is in handwriting - what appears to follow is this: "
Doctoring of the proceeding from Respondent, stalking me and intimidating showing no empower from which I ask in writing to given plenty of time to prepare for evidence from stalking and harrasment". It can fairly be said that no clear error of law is identified in that passage which is difficult to read. It may be that I have not read it correctly.[6]On 25 November 1999, the Registrar, no doubt recognising the difficulty in finding out what the grounds of the appeal truly were, asked for further reasons to be given:
"Before considering this matter further, the Registrar requests you submit further and better particulars of your Appeal i.e. fuller reasons for appealing."
[7]Nothing was heard. I should say that Employment Appeal Tribunal Rule 25 and the Practice Direction 2(5) and 2(3) all indicate the ability of a Registrar to raise such points with a prospective appellant. Nothing was heard anyhow, despite that request.[8]On 7 June of this year - so a very substantial gap had elapsed since 25 November of last year - the Registrar wrote again, or it was written on her behalf:
"Some considerable time has passed since further and better particulars of your appeal were requested. Please either supply these within the next 14 days or advise if you are wishing to withdraw"
Nothing whatsoever was heard.[9]On 17 July, a so called "Unless Order" was made as follows:
"IT IS ORDERED that unless further and better particular are received by the Employment Appeal Tribunal within 10 days of the date of this Order the Notice of Appeal will be struck out"
Well, that is a pretty clear warning. Again, remarkably, nothing was heard.[10]On 2 August, there was, in consequence, an order that the Notice of Appeal be struck out, see in that regard Employment Appeal Tribunal Rule 26.[11]On 7 August, the Employment Appeal Tribunal received a letter indicating a wish on Mr Taner's part to appeal against the Registrar's Order. As I mentioned, there is no attendance here, there is no evidence filed in the case, no explanation has been given whatsoever of Mr Taner's failure to respond to the communication of 25 November of last year or the letter of 27 June of this year, nor to act upon the Unless Order of 17 July.[12]The Notice of Appeal, as currently framed, is truly hopeless in identifying any point of law; there has been ample opportunity given to reform it but that opportunity has not been taken up. As it seems to me, the Registrar's Order was plainly a fitting order to make when it was made on 2 August. Examining the matter in the light of a fresh discretion today, still nothing has been heard to explain the failures which I have mentioned and there is, of course, no attendance or representation either.[13]The merits of the underlying appeal play a relatively small part in such applications as this but, even so, I have to say that there is nothing in the merits that suggests that the Employment Tribunal's decision was truly vulnerable. In the course of their extended reasons, they say in their paragraph 16:
"16 ….At the end of the whole of the evidence and having spent a further period of time at the conclusion of the evidence reconsidering the documents we found there was simply no material at all upon which we could find that there was any sort of discrimination on the grounds of race or sex. Furthermore, we do not find that there was any evidence of general unfairness (even though that is not something over which we have directly any jurisdiction) or any sort of arbitrary behaviour which might raise some kind of suspicion of bias towards a man or a Mediterranean man by the two white females conducting the interview."
A little later they say in their paragraph 17:
"The Applicant's case had a number of other strands related to his beliefs about members of the family who may have had reason to seek to influence different members of the Greenwich Leisure Centre. On the evidence before us it is quite clear that the panel members had never consciously come across the Applicant before and knew nothing about his cousin who may or may not have worked at the Greenwich Leisure Centre and we are quite satisfied that their decision not to appoint the Applicant was absolutely nothing to do with that kind of reasoning."
That rather indicates a decision very much on the facts, and, of course, insofar as an appeal is merely one of fact, it is not appropriate in any case. It seems that Mr Taner lost on the facts. There is no visible possible point of law, let alone a point of law identified in the Notice of Appeal, that seems to be available to him.[14]So, looking at the merits generally, quite apart from the failure to explain his lack of communication since asked to provide further and better particulars on 25 November 1999, quite apart from that, and taking into account the merits to the degree that I have mentioned, this does not seem an appropriate case to be permitted to go further forward and accordingly I dismiss the appeal.