Lewison LJ said that Employment Tribunals should exercise more active control over cases before them, saying: ‘The function of the Employment Tribunal is a limited one. It is to decide whether the employer acted reasonably in dismissing the employee, it is not for the ET to conduct a primary fact finding exercise, it is there to review the employer’s decision. Still less is the ET there to conduct an investigation into the whole of the employee’s employment history. The Employment Tribunal itself commented in this case that much of the evidence that it heard was irrelevant to the issues it had to decide. But irrelevant evidence should be decided at the case management stage and excised. It should not be allowed to clutter up a hearing and distract from the real issues. The Employment Tribunal has power to do this and should not hesitate to use it. The Employment Tribunal has power to prevent irrelevant cross-examination and again should not hesitate to exercise that power. If the parties have failed in their duty to assist the Tribunal to further the overriding objective the Employment Tribunal must itself take a firm grip on the case. To do otherwise wastes public money, prevents other cases being heard in a timely fashion and is unfair to the parties in subjecting them to increasing costs and, at least in the case of an employer, detracting from his primary concern, namely to run the business.’
Mummery, Lewison, Beatson LJJ
[2013] EWCA Civ 135, [2013] IRLR 374
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Davies v Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council EAT 13-Jan-2011
EAT UNFAIR DISMISSAL – Reasonableness of dismissal
The Employment Tribunal misdirected itself in regarding as relevant the fact that there had been no appeal against a final warning, where failure to appeal . .
Cited by:
Cited – Gaurilcikiene v Tesco Stores Ltd CA 10-Jul-2014
The appellant complained of the rejection of her claim of race discrimination by a failure in the respondent to act upon her grievance. The company replied that it had not received the badly addressed email.
Held: The appeal failed. . .
Cited – General Dynamics Information Technology Ltd v Carranza EAT 10-Oct-2014
EAT DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION – Reasonable adjustments
UNFAIR DISMISSAL – Reasonableness of dismissal
The Employment Tribunal, by a majority, found that the Respondent was in breach of a duty to make . .
Cited – Way v Spectrum Property Care Ltd CA 22-Apr-2015
The appellant had been dismissed after using the company email to forward an inappropriate email in breach of the company’s policies. Later he was disciplined for making an appointment in breach of the company’s procedures. He again misused the . .
Cited – Fallahi v TWI Ltd (Unfair Dismissal) EAT 17-Aug-2021
‘Manifestly Inapproproiate’ is a general Test
The Appellant was employed as Senior Project Leader – Technology. The Respondent raised issues about his performance. On 26 January 2016 an informal performance management process commenced and objectives were set, with targets to be measured in . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 19 August 2021; Ref: scu.471200
