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	United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Patel v RCMS Ltd [1998] UKEAT 152_98_0603 (6 March 1998) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/1998/152_98_0603.html Cite as: [1998] UKEAT 152_98_0603, [1998] UKEAT 152_98_603

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APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR GLAZIER (Representative) Employment Practice 17 Hartley Avenue Prestwich Manchester M25 0AT


 


MR JUSTICE BELL: This is a preliminary ex-parte hearing in respect of an appeal by Miss Patel against an Interlocutory Order of a Chairman of the Industrial Tribunal at Reading. The order was promulgated on 13 November 1997.

The effect of the order was that notwithstanding that her employee's contract claim was dismissed for want of jurisdiction, because it had not been presented within three months of the effective date of termination of her contract, and the Chairman of the Industrial Tribunal held that it had been reasonably practicable for her to present it within that period, a counter-claim for breach of contract against her, which had been presented within six weeks of the presentation of her own Originating Application was allowed to go ahead, so the counter-claim stood when the claim had been ruled out for time reasons.

The Chairman's decision to that effect depended upon his construction of Article 8 of the Industrial Tribunal's Extension of Jurisdiction Order 1994 which deals with employers' contract claims and comes immediately after Article 7 which deals with employee's contract claims.

We say no more at this stage than that, although the Appellant's appeal may face difficulty in that her interpretation of Article 8 involves writing additional words into Article 8, the point which is raised is one of some general potential importance and no member of this panel of the Tribunal is aware of there having been a ruling on the point by the Appeal Tribunal in the past, nor is Mr Glazier who appears for Miss Patel today.

On that basis we propose to allow the appeal to go ahead to a full hearing. If, on the involvement of the Respondent to the appeal, it becomes apparent that there has been some ruling in the past, then no doubt both parties will take heed of that. It is a short point of pure construction. We think one hour will be enough.