Appeal No. EAT/0882/01

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

	At the Tribunal
	On 26 November 2001

Before
HIS HONOUR JUDGE D PUGSLEY
MR K EDMONDSON JP
MRS R A VICKERS

MR GEOFFREY DARNTON	APPELLANT

UNIVERSITY OF SURREY	RESPONDENT

Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING

	APPEARANCES

For the Appellant	MR MICHAEL KALLIPETIS
Appearing under the
Employment Law Appeal
Advice Scheme

		

JUDGE D PUGSLEY

1.	It is difficult to do justice to an appeal if the grounds of appeal are, in effect, an attempt to re argue at great length issues of fact which were before the Tribunal; the trees and the wood become an indistinct blur.  In this case we are grateful that Mr Kallipetis has effectively concentrated his attention on two issues, namely whether the Tribunal was correct to rule that the Applicant’s letter of 19th of January 2000 was not a protected disclosure under Section 43B of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and whether the Tribunal applied the correct test and in particular whether the Applicant made the disclosure in good faith.  Mr Kallepitis has not sought to argue other matters.

2.	The nub of the issue is to be found at paragraph 43 of their decision where they say this:

“It follows from all this that our examination of that letter does not reveal that any elements of it amount to a qualifying disclosure and this application must therefore fail on those grounds.

It seems to us also from this analysis and the tone of the letter as a whole, that it is doubtful whether it was made in good faith as required by section 43(c).

We therefore do need to address the subject of whether Professor Kangis’ e-mail, which was undoubtedly a detriment, was done on the ground that Mr Darnton had made a protected disclosure, because the disclosure in our view was not protected.”

3.	Having heard Mr Kallepetis we think there is at least an arguable ground that the letter set out with a great length paragraph 27 was arguably a protected disclosure.  Secondly, we think it may well be arguable, as suggested by Mr Kallepetis that the view expressed by the Tribunal at paragraph 39 “we cannot believe an intelligent man such as Mr Darnton could reasonably believe that the facts we found amounted to such serious behaviour as we describe as criminal harassment or breach of trust and confidence” is not necessarily the appropriate test of deciding whether or not the disclosures were made in good faith.  We think that matter is arguable as well.  Mr Kallipetis has effectively thrown overboard the numerous other grounds of appeal.

4.	We give leave to the Appellant to file an emended grounds of appeal within 28 days dealing with such issues that arise from the consideration of these two matter.  This is a Class B case with a time estimate of half a day.  The usual rule as to skeleton arguments applies.