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	United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Nabar v. Sunderland Health Authority [2000] EAT 1161_99_3101 (31 January 2000) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2000/1161_99_3101.html Cite as: [2000] EAT 1161_99_3101

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APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	THE APPELLANT IN PERSON


 


JUDGE SMITH:-

1. This is an application by Doctor Nabar for leave to proceed to a full hearing of his appeal against the decision of an Employment Tribunal given on 10^th June 1999, of which Extended Reasons were sent to the parties on 5^th July 1999 whereby the Employment Tribunal held that Dr Nabar's complaints of racial discrimination were out of time and that it was in all the circumstances, concluded the Employment Tribunal, not just and equitable to extend time, and also against the decision of the Chairman sitting alone on 12^th July whereby the Chairman refused Dr Nabar's application for a review of the decision dismissing his complaint for lack of jurisdiction.
2. We have treated the matter as being an application for leave to appeal against both of those decisions, that is the way we have approached it. We would like to say straight away that Dr Nabar, who has presented his case to us in person today with courtesy and politeness, has taken considerable care in putting all the material which he regards as relevant before the Employment Appeal Tribunal and we commend him for the careful way in which he has presented his skeleton argument and the documents in support of it, in a manner which has assisted us to look into this decision. Having said that we have to advise Dr Nabar as we mentioned earlier that our jurisdiction as an Employment Appeal Tribunal is limited in that we are restricted to deciding whether there are arguable errors of law in the way in which the Employment Tribunal proceeded, either with regard to the original decision or with regard to the way in which the Chairman approached the review of the decision.
3. We can only allow matters to proceed to a full hearing of an appeal if we are satisfied that there are arguable points of law which might impugn the correctness of the decisions of the Employment Tribunal and there is no purpose to be served by our allowing a matter to go through if we do not think there is any arguable ground of law because it would simply lead to the result that the Employment Appeal Tribunal would have to dismiss the matter in the fullness of time on the basis that it did not raise any arguable ground of law.
4. It is against that background that we have to look at this matter. Before we come on to deal with what Dr Nabar has said to us orally and in his documents, we should put the decision in context. As appears from the decision of the Employment Tribunal they ruled Dr Nabar's complaint to be out of time and that it was not just and equitable to extend time. Dr Nabar had been employed for a very long period as a general practitioner (although he himself describes himself more accurately no doubt as a family doctor) with the Sunderland Health Authority since 1965.
5. Most unfortunately, as appears from the findings of the Tribunal, it must be said that the last years of his career were marred by difficult problems between himself and the Health Authority. There was a hearing, or was to be a hearing, before a National Health Service Tribunal. There were some proceedings in the Crown Court which we need not say more anything more about and there were some civil proceedings between Dr Nabar and the Health Authority. Fortunately, the proceedings before the National Health Service Tribunal were not proceeded with on condition that Dr Nabar retired because by then Dr Nabar was towards 70 we think, approximately, and he retired on terms that were agreed in July 1997 with effect from about the end of September 1997.
6. We do not need to say any more about those matters, they are all dealt with in our judgment properly, by the Employment Tribunal in paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 of their decision. It was Dr Nabar's case that he and his wife, particularly of course were concerned with his own position as far as these proceedings are concerned, were subjected to a campaign of racial discrimination by his employers and in particular allegations were made against Dr Wayne, the medical director, and the Chief Executive of the Health Authority. The nature of Dr Nabar's complaints are graphically described in Section 1 of his skeleton argument and we have taken everything into account that he has set out there. But, of course, what the Employment Tribunal were concerned with was not the merits of those allegations, which were strongly denied by the Health Authority, but rather with whether the proceedings were brought in time. The Employment Tribunal referred themselves correctly to the time limit provisions and the requirements of section 68 of the Race Relations Act which sets a three months time limit with the discretion that is given to the Tribunal at paragraph 68(6) to extend a time if it is just and equitable to do so.
7. The Employment Tribunal found, as a fact, at paragraph 10 of their decision that the complaint was more than fourteen months out of time and that was in our judgment a finding they were entitled to reach. Their reasoning was that, taking the time from the date of Dr Nabar's retirement, there had been fourteen months between that date, September 1997 or October 1997, and December 1998 when the complaint was finally presented, and, in our judgement, they were entitled to conclude that there was a very great deal of delay in that regard. They then went on to make findings in relation to the test which they posed to themselves as to whether it was just and equitable to extend time and they reached their findings in paragraph 11 and we find we cannot interfere with those findings which were to the effect that Dr Nabar, as a professional man would be expected to have either known himself about time limits or at least to have had access to expert advice from those who did know about time limits. They noted, did the Employment Tribunal, that, as was the case, Dr Nabar had the benefit at some stage of help from solicitors and also from the council for racial equality. It was in the light of those findings that the Employment Tribunal reached the conclusion they did in relation to their finding that it was not just and equitable to extend time.
8. Dr Nabar has rightly pointed out that one of the points that the Tribunal relied upon was the following:-

"We could have understood his claim being delayed, for example, by his involvement in criminal proceedings. (They were concluded in November 1997) or if he had been ill (there was no suggestion of that.)"

9. That, of course, gave rise to the review and there was an application for a review and the Chairman considered the matter of the review in his decision of the 12^th July 1999. There is no doubt that the Chairman then had in front of him the medical certificate from Mr Checketts, the Orthopaedic Surgeon, and the other medical certificate from Dr Shah, Dr Nabar's General Practitioner. In our judgment, the Chairman was entitled to conclude that there was really nothing in those documents that gave rise to any good grounds for the delay being so long after the date of Dr Nabar's retirement before the institution of the proceedings.
10. Dr Nabar points out that he has had serious problems with his knees which are continuing and he has had to have a total knee replacement and the left side and he has gross osteoathritis in the right knee and also that he has suffered and has been suffering from high blood pressure, hypertension and obviously that is a serious matter and is a matter of concern to him. In our judgment, all that was weighed up by the Chairman when he considered the review and he did point out that that was material which could have been placed before the original tribunal and he dealt with the matter on the basis that it did not really amount to new evidence within his powers under review, but he also concluded that the medical evidence, such as it was, did not justify the long delay and those were decisions which the Chairman was entitled to reach when exercising his powers on the review. We have reached the conclusion, although we have sympathy for the very courteous way in which Dr Nabar has presented matters to us today, we have been forced to conclude that there really are no arguable grounds here for upsetting the decisions that were reached by the Employment Tribunal and so, for those reasons, we will have to dismiss this application.