A representative’s decision to withdraw a complaint of unfair dismissal was consequent upon the Tribunal Chairman putting the wrong question about continuous employment to the representative. Balcombe LJ said: ‘In other words, if there is a mistake made by the litigant’s representative, it is not conclusive. The court – in this case the chairman of the Tribunal being asked to exercise a power to order a review – had a discretion. That discretion should be exercised on certain well-established principles, one of which must be: was there any mistake made at the original hearing? It cannot be just to hold Mr Harber to the mistake of his representative if that mistake was induced in part by the failure of the [North London] Polytechnic solicitors to send all the relevant documents to the Tribunal so that the Tribunal was acting, at least in part, under a misapprehension, in part by a misunderstanding or misstatement of the law by the chairman of the Tribunal itself, and in part by an apparent refusal to look at the relevant cases which were put before the Tribunal in the correspondence and a refusal of the request for an opportunity to give oral submissions. In my judgment the learned chairman, in refusing to grant a review here did not properly exercise her discretion. The Employment Tribunal did not give proper consideration to the test that she should have applied. I have no doubt that there was here a mistake and that the interests of justice do require a review.’
Balcombe LJ
[1990] IRLR 198
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Tokyo Diner Plc v S Matsumoto EAT 3-May-2001
The matter was due to come on for preliminary hearing. The respondent’s solicitor was summoned to a medical appointment only the evening before. She attended the tribunal, but left before the case was called on. There was a dispute as to whether . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 17 September 2021; Ref: scu.183460
