Appeal No. EAT/1021/97

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

	At the Tribunal
	On 28 November 1997

Before
HIS HONOUR JUDGE B HARGROVE QC
MR R JACKSON
MR T C THOMAS CBE

MR S NADA	APPELLANT

DORCHESTER HOTEL LTD	RESPONDENTS

Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING
Revised

	APPEARANCES

For the Appellant	MR LEWIS
(of Counsel)
Appearing under the Employment Law Appeal Advice Scheme	

	JUDGE B HARGROVE QC:  The Appellant claimed that he had been unfairly dismissed and that he had been subject to racial discrimination.  The question of the unfair dismissal, which was found in favour of the Respondents, is not now being pursued on appeal.  It is only the discrimination aspect that is being pursued.

	The notice of appeal sets out three grounds.  Taking the second ground first, it says in paragraph 49 that the Tribunal stated that:

“Although Mr Nada asserted continuously that he had made many applications he was unable to produce any documentary evidence to support such an assertion.”

and it is contrasted with paragraph 24 when three applications must have been made because there are letters of acknowledgement from the Respondents.  We do not consider that to be a matter which would in any way affect the decision.  It is a question of fact.  It goes on to say that the Tribunal failed to take into account at all that the Respondents did not have an equal opportunity policy or operated one.  Again, that is not a matter which seems to us to be relevant to an appeal.  The Tribunal rejected the way in which the Appellant regarded a breakdown of staff, which had been produced by the Respondents, as I understand it.  Again, that was something the Tribunal were perfectly entitled to do and they cannot be criticised for it.  Finally, it is said that the Applicant believes, following the conclusion of the hearing on 27 June, the Respondents’ witness, Mr Antolin, was dismissed following allegations of fraud.  How that could have affected the validity of the decisions reached by the Tribunal it is difficult to see.

	The one point upon which the Appellant has an aspect of genuine complaint seems to us to be the first point he makes, that the Tribunal has failed to make findings of fact on whether he had been racially discriminated against by being racially abused and assaulted on 26 April by a security guard, a Mr White.  The Tribunal appears to us possibly to have concentrated upon whether the discriminatory aspect affected employment rather than that particular incident.

	Accordingly, upon that ground and upon that ground alone, we shall permit this matter to go forward and the notice of appeal will be amended accordingly.  We shall order that there will be skeleton arguments from both sides to be filed and exchanged by 28 days before the hearing and that this shall be a category C case.