Appeal No.	EAT/1293/99

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

	At the Tribunal
	On 10 December 1999

Before
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE CHARLES
MR P R A JACQUES CBE
MR R N STRAKER

MISS P M DOUGLAS	APPELLANT

CLIFFORD COPPOCK & CARTER SOLICITORS	RESPONDENTS

Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING

Revised

	APPEARANCES

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

	MR JUSTICE CHARLES:	The parties to this appeal are a Miss Douglas and a firm of Solicitors, Clifford, Coppock & Carter.  The matter comes before us today by way of Preliminary Hearing.

1	The Appellant, Miss Douglas, appeals against a decision of an Employment Tribunal sitting in Manchester.  The Extended Reasons for that decision were sent to the parties on 11 October 1999.

2	We say at once that in our view these Extended Reasons are well presented and argued and demonstrate that this Employment Tribunal took the correct approach in law.  Not only do they refer to the relevant statutory provisions and the relevant cases, in our judgment they succinctly and correctly identify the effect of those cases.  That is something that is not always done by Employment Tribunals.  It is done in this case and demonstrates that they took considerable care in dealing with this case.

3	The Appellant has today been represented by Mr George through the ELAAS scheme.  We are very grateful to him for the assistance he has given us.  We also take the opportunity to comment that the Appellant should also be grateful to him and to compliment her on relying upon him to put her grounds of appeal to us.  He has done this effectively and clearly.

4	The essential nature of the two grounds of appeal advanced before us are that certain conclusions of the Employment Tribunal were perverse.

5	I shall deal first with the point taken second by Mr George, because it is the shorter point.  That is the decision of the Employment Tribunal relating to the claim of indirect discrimination that a requirement or condition was not imposed.  The submission made was that that was a perverse decision.  We are unable to accept that.  

6	Indeed, it seems to us to be unarguable on the basis of the reasoning of, and set out by, the Employment Tribunal who specifically considered this point and had evidence before them upon which it was open to them as the fact-finding body to make the findings that they did, as to whether or not a requirement or condition (and, in particular, a requirement of passing the legal practice course) existed.

7	The ground which was put first by Mr George on behalf of Miss Douglas, relates to the series of events described in detail in the Extended Reasons relating to: (a) Mr Coppock’s letter to Miss Douglas of 22 July 1997, (b) her complaint, which was a two-fold complaint in January 1998, to the office for supervision of solicitors (one was effectively as to negligence and the other was as to race discrimination), (c) her letter of 6 June 1998, written in accordance with the position put in the letter of 22 July 1997, that she should come back and make an application at and about that time, and then (d) the conclusions relating to the offer of employment to two persons in September 1998.  

8	Nothing that Mr George told us in respect of those matters is omitted from the Extended Reasons and therefore it is plain that the Employment Tribunal had that factual basis or matrix well in mind when reaching their decision.  

9	Mr George points, in particular, to subparagraphs 9 (xvii) and (xviii) which are to be found at pages 8, 9 and 10 of the Extended Reasons. These paragraphs, to our mind, demonstrate that the Employment Tribunal, as indeed they state at the beginning of subparagraph (xvii), were troubled in relation to the evidence about the June letter.  They make it clear that they did not receive a clear explanation from the Respondents about it.  

10	What is said on behalf of Miss Douglas is that in the absence of evidence from Mr Coppock, who was no longer with the firm and was the person who had dealt with the letter, that the conclusion of the Employment Tribunal in the middle of subparagraph (xviii) is perverse.  That conclusion was (and I quote from that paragraph):

“The only conclusion the Tribunal could draw on the evidence was that the respondent took no decision at all in relation to that letter, whether to ignore it, file it, or reply to it.”

11	In particular it was argued, that this was perverse having regard (a) to the request made in the letter of July 1997 that Miss Douglas should re-apply, and (b) to the fact that these were Solicitors and therefore, it was submitted, the conclusion represented a surprising course for them to take.  

12	Was there no evidence upon which the Tribunal could reach that conclusion?  The answer to that question, in our judgment, is “No”.  This is because the Tribunal had internal memoranda.  

13	Was it such a surprising conclusion that it could be categorised as perverse?  Again, in our judgment, the answer is “No”.  This is because the Tribunal find, although this is disputed by Miss Douglas, that there was a practice in this firm of in effect “binning” applications when there was no vacancy.  

14	In our judgment this conclusion cannot be categorised as one that is perverse, particularly having regard to the fact that the points which are urged on behalf of Miss Douglas, that it was a perverse decision are ones that appear from the Extended Reasons and are therefore ones which the Tribunal took into account.  The Tribunal were obviously very aware that they had not received an explanation from Mr Coppock and did not feel able to accept the speculative evidence of Mr Carter in this respect.

15	The second limb of this part of the argument related essentially to the claims for victimisation and direct discrimination and was that the conclusion reached concerning those matters, that in September 1998 the Respondents did not consciously address the history in respect of Miss Douglas and thus did not consciously consider Miss Douglas at all, is said to be perverse.  

16	Again, in our judgment, that is not reasonably arguable, having regard to the reasoning and earlier findings of the Tribunal as to the manner in which this firm dealt with applications of this type over the years.

17	Accordingly, in our judgment, this appeal raises no points that are reasonably arguable and it is dismissed.

18	After the delivery of this judgment orally Miss Douglas sought leave to appeal by letter dated 14 December 1999.  This application is refused.  We refuse leave because the basis of our decision is that in our view this appeal raises no reasonably arguable points of law.