Appeal No. EAT/1210/00

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

	At the Tribunal
	On 7 March 2001

Before
MISS RECORDER ELIZABETH SLADE QC
MR K EDMONSON JP
MRS R CHAPMAN

MR A BARRENECHEA	APPELLANT

MRS R C BLACK	RESPONDENT

Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING

	APPEARANCES

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

MISS RECORDER ELIZABETH SLADE QC:

1.	This is the preliminary hearing of an appeal by Mr Barrenechea against the decision of an Employment Tribunal on remedy.  The ground of appeal is that the Employment Tribunal had erred in accepting the evidence of the applicant before it, Mrs Black, as to her weekly wage.  It is contended in the letter of appeal that the wage was “made up” by Mrs Black.  

2.	The Notice of Appeal before us was received at the Employment Appeal Tribunal on 7 July 2000.  At the time when the appeal was originally lodged, no extended reasons had been obtained.  Those were given on 13 September 2000.  

3.	Paragraph 5 of the extended reasons deals with the issue of which Mr Barrenechea makes complaint, namely the amount of weekly salary which forms the basis of the assessment of compensation.  As to that amount, the Tribunal said at paragraph 5:-

“we made a finding on the last occasion and, indeed, made our calculations on the basis of that finding and do not feel it appropriate to alter our original decision insofar as the amount of pay is concerned.  Mrs Black’s pay, therefore, we find, was £64 a week gross and £62.72 a week net.”

It is therefore apparent from the Decision that the Tribunal on the remedies hearing was relying on its earlier decision made in the course of the liability hearing as to the week’s pay that the applicant was in receipt of from Mr Barrenechea.  

4.	Since the matter raised in the grounds of appeal is therefore properly to be regarded as an attack on the finding of the Tribunal hearing liability, we have obtained a copy of the Decision of that Tribunal on liability.  This is for the assistance of Mr Barrenechea because any appeal against the Decision on liability would have been well out of time by 7 July 2000, since the Decision on liability was sent to the parties on 22 November 1999. In order to assist Mr Barrenechea and to see whether, if he had appeared and if representations had been made we should consider extending time for lodging an appeal against that decision, that we have looked at the passage in the Tribunal’s Decision on liability dealing with the amount of weekly salary.  

5.	The Tribunal deal with the issue at paragraph 23 of their Decision. This Decision was made after a hearing at which Mr Barrenechea did appear, unlike the remedies hearing, where he did not.  In the Decision on the liability issue the Tribunal said this at paragraph 23:-

“We accept her [Mrs Black’s] evidence that she worked 16 hours and should therefore have received £64 gross.  From the pay slips presented, we see from six of them that whenever her weekly pay was £64 gross National Health Insurance deductions amounted to £1.28 giving her a net figure of £62.72.”

6.	The Tribunal had obviously considered the issue as to the amount of weekly pay because there was a dispute before them as to how much that was.  They had before them a P45 which, if one did an exact addition, indicated a weekly pay of £56 per week.  However, the Tribunal explained the basis of their decision and it seems to us that they were entitled to reach the decision which they did on the evidence, so that even if this matter had been an appeal against the original decision of the Tribunal on liability and even if it had been in time, we would not have considered that it would have had a reasonable prospect of success.  In those circumstances, even if an application had been made to appeal against that Decision out of time, it would not have been granted as it would not have had a reasonable prospect of success.  

7.	Accordingly the grounds of appeal do not disclose an arguable point of law and this appeal is dismissed.