Appeal No. EAT/837/00

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

	At the Tribunal
	On 8 December 2000

Before
HIS HONOUR JUDGE D M LEVY QC
MR J R CROSBY
MR P M SMITH

MISS D A CHAPMAN	APPELLANT

LEWISHAM HOSPITAL NHS TRUST	RESPONDENT

Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING 

Revised

	APPEARANCES

For the Appellant	The Appellant in person	

JUDGE D M LEVY QC

1	This is the preliminary hearing of an appeal by Miss D A Chapman (“the Appellant”).  She was employed by the Lewisham Hospital NHS Trust and as a result of an incident on 5 September 1999, she was ultimately dismissed. 

2	The Appellant brought proceedings in the Employment Tribunal which were commenced on 15 January 2000 in which she alleged constructive dismissal, race discrimination and Wages Act.  There was a hearing of her complaint before an Employment Tribunal sitting at London South on 8 and 9 May 2000.  On that occasion the Appellant was represented by Counsel and the Respondent by solicitors.  The Tribunal’s decision was promulgated on 24 May 2000; their decision was unanimous in dismissing the proceedings.

3	From that decision the Appellant appealed by Notice dated 4 July, running to some 18 pages.  She has supplemented that document by a bundle of some 101 pages for today.  She has had the opportunity of seeing the representative at ELAAS, who helpfully assist litigants in person on the preliminary hearing of their appeal; has decided to represent herself this morning.  

4	We heard her submissions for some 25 minutes.  Her case is that the decision of the Tribunal was perverse.  Essentially what happened on the night of 5 September was that she was the nurse in charge of the ward, and with her there were others who were, perhaps, less qualified.  

5	Something went wrong with the treatment of a patient, which was not spotted by those who took over when her tour of duty was finished.  That something may not have gone wrong because of something she did, but because of what someone junior to her, had done.  Whosoever was primarily at fault, the incident resulted in her dismissal, and that resulted in the litigation.  

6	So far as the complaints against the dismissal are concerned, the experienced Chairman and colleagues in the Tribunal below set out clearly what went wrong that night, and why they felt the Appellant was more culpable than others who looked after the patient.  

7	There is some hint, in the documents which we have read, that the Appellant feels that those who came on to the shift after her, may have done something improper.  That does not appear anywhere in the decision, and if there was anything in that notion, we are sure that it would have found its way into the findings of fact, and indeed, would have been taken by Counsel, who appeared for her at the time.  

8	On the dismissal point, what the Appellant is seeking to do is to re-open the findings of fact, which in our judgment, were well within  proper findings by those who disciplined her, and were properly found to be reasonable by the Employment Tribunal.  

9	As to the decision on racial discrimination, the Tribunal for reasons which they gave, found that there were comparators other than those who were on duty that night, whose cases might be more favourable to the Appellant, than those who were on duty that night.  They looked at those comparables, as against her, and found that she had not been more harshly dealt with by the Respondent than they were.  

10	In those circumstances, the Tribunal found there was no direct race discrimination.  Those findings of fact also were well within reasonable findings by the Employment Tribunal, and they are not ones which, in our view, can in any way be thought to be perverse.  

11	We are not allowed to permit an appeal to go forward unless there are grounds which we find reasonably arguable in the preliminary hearing.  We would like to have helped Miss Chapman, if we could, but we cannot discern any grounds which could lead any of us to `suppose that this appeal has any chance of success if it goes to a full hearing.  

In those circumstances, we must and do dismiss it at this stage.