Phillip Cattlin t/a Success First v Jodie Croxford Employment Appeal Tribunal, UKEAT/0231/06.
Phillip Cattlin t/a Success First v Jodie Croxford Employment Appeal Tribunal, UKEAT/0231/06.
Claire Darwin, 12KBW third-six pupil, acting pro bono in the EAT instructed by FRU, argued successfully that the decision of an ET should be upheld in a case in which the Claimant was awarded over £20,000 compensation. In their decision the EAT found that a long-standing decision (Hancock v Middleton (1982)) was to be distinguished.Phillip Cattlin t/a Success First v Jodie Croxford Employment Appeal Tribunal, UKEAT/0231/06.
The employer argued that the ET’s decision not to review its judgment in favour of the Claimant was perverse. The ET (Chairman sitting alone) had awarded the Claimant over £20,000 in damages.
The employer had applied for a review on the basis that he had not received the notice of appearance and that he had not attended at the hearing. The applications for review were dismissed (again by Chairman sitting alone).
The employer relied on Hancock v Middleton [1982] ICR 416, EAT and argued that the Chairman had been wrong to sit alone when hearing an application for review on the grounds of non-receipt of notice of appearance and non-attendance at the hearing. The employer also argued that the Chairman had been wrong to dismiss the application for review at the preliminary stage and that he should have heard further evidence or conducted some further investigations.
Mr Justice Reid noted that Hancock was a decision under the 1980 Regulations. Furthermore in Hancock the original hearing had been conducted by a Chairman and two wing members, but the review hearing had only been conducted by a Chairman. Reid J. contrasted the 1980 Regulations with the 2004 Regulations, specifically Regulation 35 and 36 (Schedule 1 of the 2004 Regulations) and found that there was no equivalent in the 2004 Regulations to the 1980 rules regarding the constitution of the Tribunal at a Review hearing.
Reid J. further found that it would be elevating the Hancock decision to rely on it as support for the contention that every time a review application was made on the ground of non-receipt of documents, the application would automatically bypass the preliminary consideration stage.
Accordingly, Reid J. accepted the employee’s submission that the notice of appearance had been properly served in accordance with the 2004 Regulations, and therefore the notice of appearance was deemed to have been received by the employer at their last known residential and/or last known business address.
The judgment is available here