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	United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Meadows (t/a Panther Auto Valeting) v. Dodd [2002] UKEAT 1334_01_1907 (19 July 2002) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2002/1334_01_1907.html Cite as: [2002] UKEAT 1334_01_1907, [2002] UKEAT 1334_1_1907

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APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR MEADOWS (the Appellant in person)


 


MR RECORDER LANGSTAFF QC

1. This matter comes by way of an appeal against a decision of the Employment Tribunal at Reading. Extended Reasons were promulgated for the decision on 9 October 2001. They related to a hearing on 25 September. At that hearing the Tribunal upheld the employee's complaints that he had not been paid wages contrary to Section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. They ordered the Respondent to pay him £1,300 in that respect.
2. There had been no Notice of Appearance filed by the Respondent, nor had he come to attend the Employment Tribunal. Accordingly, there was neither evidence, nor material, nor any matter put before the Tribunal in respect of the claim, other than the evidence of the employee himself. On that evidence, the Tribunal, in Summary Reasons, set out the basis upon which they came to the conclusions we have summarised. We see no error of law in their having come to those conclusions upon that evidence. Indeed, before us today, Mr Meadows himself confessed that on the basis of that evidence the Tribunal could come to no other conclusion. The real problem for him was that he was not there.
3. When he received the notice of the reasons he immediately sought the Extended Reasons for the judgment so that he might appeal it and asked for a full review of the case. He said he did not receive details of the case being lodged against him. Accordingly, the Tribunal set a date for a review. That review was heard on 10 December 2001. In the interim, however, on 22 October, the Appellant had appealed to this Court against the decision made in September and the reasoning given in October. There was, of course, no arguable point of law, for the reasons we have already given, in that appeal.
4. He did not turn up at the review, which was his opportunity of persuading the Tribunal to reconsider their findings of fact because of the evidence which he might have given, had he been in a position to do so. He, apparently, did not contact the Tribunal to tell it that he would not be turning up. He has told us that the reason he did not appear was that he had appealed to this Tribunal and he thought that this Tribunal, being an Appeal Tribunal, would take precedence. Thus, he thought there would be no review and that the Employment Tribunal would automatically be notified of the appeal to us. It was on that basis, and it would appear, without checking, that he did not contact the Tribunal to tell them of his view. If he had done, he might have been steered in the right direction.
5. We have had no appeal against the decision made on the application for review, so it is unnecessary for us to consider it. If we had, however, had such an appeal, we would have been bound to dismiss it because the Tribunal on that occasion had neither the employee nor the Appellant before it. Without evidence, without representation and without any material to suggest that their earlier decision was in any way wrong in substance or in approach, the Tribunal could do nothing other than affirm the decision it had first reached.
6. Since our jurisdiction is entirely one which depends upon identifying an error of law in the Employment Tribunal below, and because it follows from what we said that we can see none, this appeal has to be dismissed. We have some sympathy for Mr Meadows' position. We hope that the discussion there has been here today, coupled with the reasons which we have just given, will leave him clear as to why it is that this Tribunal can be of no assistance to him in the circumstances. The appeal is dismissed.