MS R BOARD v SUPERDRUG STORES PLC [2001] UKEAT 1230_00_2303
[1]APPEARANCES For the Appellant NO APPEARANCE OR REPRESENTATION BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT MR RECORDER LANGSTAFF This matter comes before us by way of a Preliminary Hearing from the London Central Employment Tribunal in a decision which was promulgated on 6 September 2000. That date is important for reasons I shall come to.[2]The Appellant has not been represented nor is present this morning but we have considered her appeal on paper to see whether, we think, there is an arguable point of law which should go forward to a Full Hearing. We think there is. It is essentially this. On 8 September 2000 she wrote in a letter which may well have been addressed to this Tribunal, because it was dated as received here on 18 September 2000, to ask that there be a re-hearing. She had not attended the hearing before the Tribunal and on that basis her case had been dismissed having considered what evidence there was.[3]The Rules provide that an application for a review must be made within 14 days of the date of the decision made to the Secretary of the Tribunals. We think it is an arguable question as to whether a letter here, to this Tribunal, made within the 14 days seeking essentially a review, complies with those regulations and we think that is a point for which there ought to be a full argument.[4]For those reasons we think there is an appeal, limited to that procedural ground. We think it is an appeal which is likely to take no more than one hour to hear and we think that it should be listed in category B. We would ask that the Appellant provide any further observations she may have in writing no less than a week before the hearing and that the Respondent provide a skeleton argument within the same time scale, making reference to any cases or authorities which it is considered would help the disposition of the appeal. A chronology would also be of assistance if that could be provided.