L I GROUP LTD v MR A J CRAIG [2000] UKEAT 432_00_1407

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL

BAILII case number: [2000] UKEAT 432_00_1407

Case No Appeal No. EAT/432/00

Venue 58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

Between

L I GROUP LTDAPPELLANT

MR A J CRAIGRESPONDENT

Before

Mr Justice Lindsay

Date 14 July 2000

[1]APPEARANCES For the Appellants MR CLIVE SHELDON (of Counsel) Instructed By: Messrs Battens with Poole & Co Solicitors 17 Market Street Crewkerne Somerset TA18 7JU MR JUSTICE LINDSAY (PRESIDENT) : We have before us as a preliminary hearing the appeal of L.I. Group Ltd in the matter Alexander James Craig against the L.I. Group Ltd. On 20 December 1999 Mr Craig lodged an IT1 claiming unfair dismissal, giving his dates of employment as 20 July 1994 to 15 December 1999. The Respondent was the L.I. Group Ltd. Mr Craig claimed that his relevant employment had begun with Yeo Valley Co Ltd and that in time he became responsible for the Tesco contract and that on 14 May 1999 "Yeo Valley Co sold the Tesco contract to L.I. Group Ltd". Yeo Valley's Managing Director, he said, told him that he would be transferring to L.I. Group under TUPE rules. Changes were then made, he said, by the L.I. Group which left him substantially financially worse off. When he asked why that was, he was given, he said, one month's notice without any reason.

[2]On 17 January 2000 L.I. Group's IT3 asserted that Mr Craig had begun with them only on 17 May 1999 and that there had been no TUPE transfer. Although the L.I. Group did not in their IT3 actually request there and then a hearing of a preliminary point as to length of service and, consequentially, as to jurisdiction, one was arranged. Quite how it came about does not appear but on 22 February 2000 a hearing took place at Bristol, under the chairmanship of Mr M.J.R. Griffiths with a full three-person Tribunal. On 8 March the decision was given:

"The unanimous decision of the Tribunal is that the applicant has sufficient period of continuous employment to entitle him to pursue his claim."

[3]At that stage only Summary Reasons (and they were truly summary; they were only six lines long) were given. Presumably, and again it does not appear in our papers, there was a request for Extended Reasons and on 30 March 2000 they were sent to the parties and were a fraction over one page long.

[4]On 10 April the L.I. Group lodged a Notice of Appeal, the nub of which was that the Extended Reasons were so terse as not to have complied with the well known approach required by Meek v City of Birmingham District Council

[1987] IRLR 250

, namely that the losing party should at least be able to tell why it has lost and be able to identify from the reasoning given whether any error of law is available to be taken on appeal.

[5]It is very easy to sympathise with a Tribunal faced with a TUPE case involving identification of the undertaking, if any and its transfer, if any, in the circumstance that neither the term "transfer" nor the term "undertaking" is defined in any really helpful way in either Domestic Provisions or in Community Directions or cases of the European Court of Justice. Indeed, the then current state of the law in this area was described by Morison J, whilst President of the EAT, as being in a mess. In such a circumstance it particularly behoves a Tribunal at least clearly to set out the primary facts upon which it relies with clarity and here it is, in our view, just arguable (and, of course, at this stage we need say nothing beyond arguable) that the Meek test was not satisfied. Paragraph 8 of the Appellant's Notice of Appeal identifies a number of areas as to which the Appellant arguably was entitled to findings of fact, but where no such findings are to be found.

[6]We therefore give leave to the matter to go to a full hearing although, of course, in so saying we are not at all indicating what the outcome is likely to be, simply that there is arguability in the point that Meek v City of Birmingham District Council was not here satisfied.

[7]We also have given leave to Mr Sheldon, who has appeared today on behalf of L.I. Group, to make an amendment to the Notice of Appeal to include the point that is cited at footnote 1 in his skeleton argument.