Riniker v City & Islington College Corporation

An Employment Appeal Tribunal hearing under rule 3(10) is a fresh consideration of whether the appeal discloses a reasonable ground, rather than an appeal against the earlier sift decision. An Employment Tribunal may maintain separate judgments for the original decision and a subsequent review confirming it. The slip rule permits correction of clerical mistakes or errors arising from accidental slip or omission, including an inaccurate description of a review hearing. The EAT may call for a tribunal judge’s notes where an appeal properly requires them, but notes are irrelevant where no appeal is extant and their production cannot be used to revive an out-of-time or rejected appeal. Repeated attempts to reopen issues already determined may constitute an abuse of process.

The claimant brought employment proceedings which had been struck out by Employment Judge Postle for failure to comply with directions. A later bilateral hearing considered her application for review and confirmed the strike-out judgment. Appeals and applications concerning the original and review judgments were dealt with by different EAT judges, including decisions that an appeal against the review judgment was out of time and that the claimant could not introduce that challenge into the appeal against the original judgment.

The claimant then sought a rule 3(10) hearing concerning two letters from the Regional Employment Judge. She challenged the refusal to correct the description of the review judgment, the existence of two judgments, and the refusal to provide the original judge’s notes.

1. Disposition. The rule 3(10) application failed, subject to an administrative correction of the Employment Tribunal record. The words “pre-hearing” were to be deleted so that the judgment was described as a judgment following a review hearing. The other applications were dismissed.
2. Rule 3(10) procedure. The claimant’s application was heard afresh. A rule 3(8) fresh Notice of Appeal and a rule 3(10) oral hearing are separate rights. The issue at the hearing was whether the appeal disclosed any reasonable ground, or was otherwise an abuse of the EAT’s process. The EAT’s jurisdiction derives from section 21 of the Employment Tribunals Act 1996 and is confined to questions of law.
3. Separate judgments and correction. The original strike-out decision and the later judgment confirming it on review determined different matters. There was therefore no anomaly in retaining both judgments. The slip rule could correct the inaccurate description of the later hearing, and the EAT could direct that correction under its statutory powers when disposing of the appeal.
4. Judge’s notes. Houston v Lightwater Farms Limited established that a judge should take notes and produce them if required on appeal. That principle did not assist the claimant because no appeal concerning the review judgment was before the EAT. The notes could not be used to introduce a rejected challenge into another appeal. Repeated attempts to revisit the issue, already determined by earlier EAT judges, were an abuse of process.
5. Final order. The record was corrected administratively. The remaining grounds and applications were dismissed.

• Employment Tribunal, Watford: the claimant’s claims were struck out for failure to comply with tribunal directions. A later review hearing confirmed the strike-out judgment.
• Employment Appeal Tribunal: earlier appeals and applications concerning the original and review judgments were dismissed or rejected, including an out-of-time appeal against the review judgment. The present rule 3(10) application was dismissed, save for correction of the record.