millin_capsticksEAT1410
EAT Practice and Procedure : Case Management – Costs
An experienced employment lawyer claimed prior to her resignation that she had been discriminated against on the ground of her sex, and in a second claim of further discrimination and that she was entitled to resign by breach of the implied term of trust and confidence. She relied on 8 specific complaints, of which one alone remained by the time of the appeal. It was contended that the Respondent had conceded at a Case Management Discussion that it had been in breach by conducting no appraisals of the Claimant.
Held: A List of Issues was not a pleading, but a tool to facilitate a hearing, and could not be approached with the formality one might approach a commercial contract or pleading. Even if it were, the issues list in this case could not be construed as the Claimant contended. Textually, as well as in the context of the List of Issues as a whole, the prior conduct of the litigation and (if permissible, which the EAT thought it was) the later behaviour of the parties as well, it did not contain a concession by which the Respondents and Tribunal were bound unless it was formally resiled from. Nor did the approach of the ET to credibility display an error of logic or approach.
A separate appeal against a later award of costs on the basis the claims were misconceived at the outset and had also been unreasonably conducted was rejected, since it was within the powers of the Tribunal to make.
Langstaff J P
[2014] UKEAT 0093 – 14 – 2810
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.538274
