Appeal No.	 EAT/1308/96

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

	At the Tribunal
	On 14 February 1997

Before
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE MORISON (P)
MR L D COWAN
MS B SWITZER

MR J FLETCHER	APPELLANT

PANORAMA KITCHENS	RESPONDENTS

Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING

Revised

	APPEARANCES

For the Appellant	NO APPEARANCE BY OR
REPRESENTATION ON
BEHALF OF THE
APPELLANT	

	MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT):     The Industrial Tribunal’s decision was promulgated on 15 May 1996.  In that decision the Industrial Tribunal dismissed the Applicant’s complaint of unfair dismissal and gave its reasons in summary form.  

	Parties have 21 days in which to apply for Extended Reasons and, generally, this Employment Appeal Tribunal will not consider appeals where the Tribunal have only given their decision in summary form.  The employee concerned then applied to the Industrial Tribunal for their Extended Reasons.

	On 15 October 1996, by a decision which was then sent to the parties, the Industrial Tribunal Chairman refused to extend the time prescribed by Rule 10 of The Industrial Tribunals Rules of Procedure 1993 and, therefore, he refused to provide the Tribunal’s reasons for its decision in extended form.

	The reasons for that refusal are comprehensively set out in a carefully constructed decision.  They refer to the fact that on 5 June a letter was received by the Liverpool Office of the Industrial Tribunals from the employee’s Solicitors, saying:

“Our client has indicated that he wishes to appeal against the decision and the grounds for appeal are that the Tribunal have reached an irrational and unreasonable decision.”

	That document was received and responded to on 12 June.  Quite understandably, the Tribunal made it plain that they were at a loss to understand why the Solicitor should be writing to them, inviting the Chairman to comment about the fact that the Appellant wished to appeal against the decision.  A further letter was sent on 19 July 1996 asking for written reasons.  This was considerably outside the statutory period and accordingly, the Tribunal wrote on 19 July saying:

“Thank you for your letter dated 16 July 1996.
A Chairman  ...  has instructed me to write and ask you to explain the reason or reasons for your request for extended reasons having been made outside the statutory time period prescribed by the Rules of Procedure.”

	No reply was received to that letter until 23 September 1996, which was some two months later.

	Having considered the various facts the Industrial Tribunal were satisfied that the Applicant’s Solicitors had not put forward any satisfactory reason for their failure to make their request for extended reasons within the prescribed statutory period of 21 days and, therefore, the Chairman refused, pursuant to the powers conferred on him by Rule 13, to extend that time period and treat the request, in their letter of 16 July which was received on 19 July, as having been received within the prescribed statutory time period.

	The purpose of this hearing has been to determine whether there is any arguable point of law raised in an appeal against that refusal by the Tribunal to extend time for the Extended Reasons.  Nobody has appeared on behalf of the Appellant.  They are not required to appear before us.  

	It seems to us that the submission that “no reasonable Tribunal could have reached the decision in question” is simply unsustainable on the facts of this case.  The decision of the Tribunal, to which I have referred, is a model of its kind, setting out precisely why it was that the Tribunal were not prepared to extend time.

	Accordingly, we see no reason to interfere with that decision and accordingly the appeal will be dismissed.