MISS T C VON GOETZ v ST GEORGE'S HEALTHCARE NHS TRUST [2001] UKEAT 1395_97_0407

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
BAILII case number: [2001] UKEAT 1395_97_0407Case No Appeal No. EAT/1395/97 EAT/625/99 EAT/626/99Venue 58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS
Between
MISS T C VON GOETZAPPELLANTST GEORGE'S HEALTHCARE NHS TRUSTRESPONDENT
Before
Mr Justice Douglas Brown Mrs R Chapman Mr D J JenkinsDate 4 July 2001
[1]APPEARANCES For the Appellant NO APPEARANCE OR REPRESENTATION BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT For the Respondent MR A LYNCH QC Instructed By: Bevan Ashford 1 Chancery Lane London WC2A 1LF MR JUSTICE DOUGLAS BROWN: July 4 th today is the date which this Court has assigned for the hearing of three appeals brought by Miss Therese von Goetz, the Respondents being the St George's Healthcare NHS Trust.[2]Miss von Goetz by various letters, including one sent by fax overnight, asks for this date to be vacated and the hearing of these three appeals adjourned to another date. The principle but by no means the only ground on which she seeks an adjournment is in relation to her health. She is not here today. She is, we understand it, attending a hospital appointment in Exeter which is where she now lives. She has, over the past few weeks, provided this Court with some details of her medical condition. These have come exclusively from her general practitioner, Dr Withey. Dr Withey wrote on 1 June, the successor to her earlier letters on the same lines in these terms:
"I recently wrote concerning this lady's problems with her family commitments, illness, increasing pressure at home together with deadlines, which she has to reach. This causes her difficulty in concentration and exhaustion and I wrote expressing my concern that she needed a break from current deadlines. Just to reiterate the above I feel a break of four weeks would be helpful for us to address her situation."
Four weeks on from that Dr Withey writes again, yesterday's date, 3 July:
"Mrs Warden [which is Miss von Goetz's married name] has shown me the fax of 2/7/01 [which was a fax asking for further information]. Mrs Warden in my opinion is not fit to attend a hearing on 4/7/01 due to the reasons previously stated in letter of 1/6/01."
[3]The doctor then goes on to deal with a matter which has exercised this Appeal Tribunal and its President over the last few weeks and that is a hospital appointment which Miss von Goetz has today at the Royal, Devon and Exeter Hospital. Until yesterday she was very reluctant to divulge any details of this hospital appointment at all regarding it as an intrusion on her privacy and she sent details of the appointment initially with most of the relevant details blanked out. A further copy with rather more detail was then provided but it still did not indicate any medical reason or hint at any medical speciality of the doctor who was going to see her. An application was made to the President of this Court on Monday based on that information and the President, entirely understandably, declined to order the adjournment and suggested that more information should be provided. That has now been provided to a limited extent in Dr Withey's letter of yesterday's date, the second paragraph of which reads:
"She is currently undergoing a series of investigations instigated by Consultant Vascular Surgeon, Mr J. Thompson at the Royal, Devon and Exeter Hospital. She is due to have an investigation on 4.7.01 and it would be unhelpful and potentially detrimental if this were to be delayed."
[4]In other correspondence Miss von Goetz informed the Registrar that if that appointment was missed it would not be possible to arrange one until October.[5]It is again apparent from other correspondence from Miss von Goetz that this investigation today is only one of a number of investigations which have to be carried out. We have referred to that in some detail because of the concerns that not only we have but the Respondents to these appeals have about the reasons for Miss von Goetz's absence today.[6]Having reviewed that material it is clear now that it would be wrong not to adjourn this hearing. It would be wrong to proceed in her absence and hear the arguments of Mr Adrian Lynch QC for the Respondents, without her today being present to answer or indeed to prosecute her appeal.[7]So we have come, we have to say reluctantly, to the conclusion that these appeals should be adjourned. We have to say that we are sceptical of the reasons put forward by the general practitioner who does not in her letter identify any condition or illness which gives rise to the symptoms she describes. They are, if we may say so with respect to the doctor, on the vague side and that is not just the letters that we have read out but other letters which we have read, some of them going back to April, where the doctor was providing similar extremely vague information. One area where the letters are less than helpful, is having said that there should be a period of three or four weeks' rest or a month's rest, there is no explanation provided as to why, after the expiration of that time, the condition still prevails. Be that as it may where there is a hospital appointment, the details of which have now been given to us, the decision to adjourn now has been made. So we will adjourn. We will now hear from Mr Lynch as to the way forward with these appeals.