Appeal No. EAT/488/01

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
SITTING AT THE ROYAL COURTS OF JUSTICE,
STRAND, LONDON, WC2A 2LL

	At the Tribunal
	On 1 August 2001

Before
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE LINDSAY (PRESIDENT) 
MS J DRAKE 
MR T C THOMAS CBE

MR B COOK	APPELLANT

LONDON BOROUGH OF TOWER HAMLETS	RESPONDENT

Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING 

Revised

	APPEARANCES

For the Appellant	Mark Jackson
Solicitor
Messrs Lake & Co
Solicitors
6 Albemarle Way
London EC1V 4JB

MR JUSTICE LINDSAY (PRESIDENT) 

1	We have before us, as a preliminary hearing, the matter of Mr B Cook v London Borough of Tower Hamlets.  Mr Barry Cook is represented today by Mr Jackson, who appeared also for him at the Tribunal below. 

2	On 4 July 2000, Mr Cook issued an IT1 for unfair dismissal.  He had been employed from 2 September 1996 to 5 April 2000.  He had suffered, he claimed, from some rather strange difficulties with a colleague fellow-employee of the London Borough, a Mr R.S, as he was referred to at some stages in the proceedings.  

3	He submitted that what RS imposed upon him amounted to significant harassment.  He said that the Deputy Headmaster had looked into it, and had said that it was merely a misunderstanding, but that there had been delays and that the stage two in the Tower Hamlets grievance procedure was also, in effect, denied to him and then significantly delayed.  He signed off sick and when he learned ultimately that little or nothing had been done to progress his grievance, he felt he had no option but to resign, which he did on 5 April 2000.

4	The hearing at Stratford was on 8 and 9 February of this year, and the Decision was sent to the parties on 19 February of this year, and it was the unanimous Decision of the Tribunal, sitting under Mr Cole at Stratford, that Mr Cook was not constructively dismissed on 2 April.  Mr Cook appealed and there is a Skeleton Argument from Mr Jackson that, perhaps at its strongest point, relies on the notion that one might call the last straw doctrine.  One can have a series of breaches, trivial in themselves, which, for all the separate triviality of each separate constituent, nonetheless can amount, when properly regarded cumulatively at the end, as amounting to a fundamental breach of contract - the “last straw” doctrine.  
5	Here, although this is plainly a case in which more than one view is possible, we do say that it is arguable that here the Tribunal did not sufficiently pay regard to the fact that the cumulative weight of a series of minor incidents can be major, can, indeed, be fundamental.  Accordingly, we shall permit this matter to go to a full hearing.