University Of East Anglia v Amaikwu

An Employment Tribunal’s decision to grant or refuse an adjournment is a case-management discretion. An appellate tribunal may intervene only for an error of law, including taking account of irrelevant matters, failing to take account of relevant matters, or reaching a perverse conclusion.

Whether a hearing should take priority over a witness’s family commitment depends on all the circumstances. Relevant matters may include the witness’s importance, the promptness and genuineness of the application, the availability of alternative dates, the prejudice caused by delay, and whether the tribunal sought dates to avoid before listing the hearing.

The claimant, a former employee of the University, brought claims for unfair dismissal and race discrimination. A listed hearing was cancelled because no judge was available. The Employment Tribunal then relisted it without first seeking dates to avoid.

The University promptly sought an adjournment because Mrs Koro, against whom many allegations were made, had a longstanding overseas family-wedding commitment during the new hearing dates. Employment Judge Pritchard-Witts refused the application, stating that the hearing took priority over a family wedding, that the claimant’s objections were well founded, and that the case was becoming stale.

The University appealed. The central issue was whether the Employment Judge had lawfully exercised the adjournment discretion.

1. Appeal allowed. The Employment Judge’s exercise of discretion could not stand. The judge treated the claimant’s objections as well founded, but they did not justify refusing an adjournment.

2. Mrs Koro was a crucial witness. Numerous pleaded allegations, including harassment allegations, were made directly against her. Other witnesses from the same department could not fully answer those allegations. The possibility of seeking a witness order did not answer the issue, since whether such an order should be made depended on substantially the same considerations as an adjournment.

3. The claimant’s asserted witness difficulty and prejudice from disruption were too vague to show that an alternative date could not accommodate her. The suggestion that the case was stale also carried little weight. Any staleness principally resulted from the Tribunal’s cancellation of the earlier hearing, and an alternative date might have caused only a short further delay.

4. A hearing does not invariably take priority over a family wedding. The decision required an assessment of all the circumstances. The Tribunal failed to investigate potentially suitable alternative dates or whether the witness could attend for part of the hearing. It also failed to give proper weight to its relisting without seeking dates to avoid and to the University’s prompt request based on witness availability.

5. Remaking the decision, the EAT accepted that the witness had a genuine longstanding commitment and that the University was not responsible for the subsequent passage of time. Fairness required an adjournment. The case was adjourned to dates to be fixed by the Norwich Employment Tribunal.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: allowed the University’s appeal from the Employment Tribunal’s refusal of an adjournment and remade the decision by granting an adjournment.
• Employment Tribunal: Employment Judge Pritchard-Witts refused the University’s application to postpone the relisted merits hearing.