Dr Craig John Bennoch v Scottish Power Ltd & Ors

An Employment Appeal Tribunal appeal must identify a reasonably arguable error of law in the decision under challenge. It cannot reopen an underlying merits judgment or concluded earlier appeals.

A tribunal may refuse a very late reconsideration application where speculative allegations of apparent bias do not outweigh finality in litigation. The Porter v Magill test asks whether a fair-minded and informed observer would find a real possibility of bias.

The correction power in rule 69 is confined to a clerical mistake or accidental slip or omission. It cannot be used to alter a judgment because a party seeks a different substantive result.

The claimant had been dismissed from employment and his unfair-dismissal complaint was dismissed by an Employment Tribunal in 2019. Earlier appeals and reconsideration applications had also failed.

In 2023, almost four years after the original judgment, he sought reconsideration on the basis of alleged conflicts of interest involving members of the original panel. The President of Employment Tribunals in Scotland refused to extend time and, alternatively, found no reasonable prospect of varying or revoking the judgment.

In 2024, the claimant sought a certificate of correction under rule 69 of the Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2013. He sought to alter the account of authorities in the original judgment in a way intended to change its substantive outcome. That request was refused. The two appeals raised whether those refusals disclosed reasonably arguable errors of law.

1. Both appeals were dismissed. Neither disclosed a reasonably arguable error of law. No further action would be taken.

2. At a rule 3(10) hearing, the EAT’s task was confined to whether the two decisions of the President of Employment Tribunals disclosed reasonably arguable legal error. Under section 21(1) of the Employment Tribunals Act 1996, it could not rehear the original unfair-dismissal claim, reopen prior appeals, or reconsider the merits of the 2019 judgment.

3. The refusal to extend time for the 2023 reconsideration application was plainly open to the tribunal. The application was made nearly four years late. The alleged connection between a non-legal panel member and a solicitor who had not represented the claimant at the hearing was speculative. The tribunal permissibly weighed that speculation against the important principle of finality in litigation.

4. The tribunal also correctly applied the apparent-bias test in Porter v Magill, [2002] 2 AC 357. Taking the claimant’s case at its highest, the facts did not permit a fair-minded and informed observer to conclude that there was a real possibility of bias. Its alternative refusal on the merits was therefore unimpeachable.

5. Rule 69 of the Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2013 is a slip rule. As explained in Secretary of State for the Home Department v Devani, [2020] EWCA Civ 612, it addresses a failure to express what the tribunal intended when promulgating its decision. It does not permit a party to seek a different substantive decision after reconsideration and appeal have failed. The requested alteration was not a clerical mistake, accidental slip, or omission, but an attempt to reverse the effect of the original judgment.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: In [2025] EAT 61, the EAT dismissed the claimant’s fifth appeal against the refusal of his 2023 reconsideration application and his sixth appeal against the refusal to issue a rule 69 certificate of correction.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: Earlier appeals from the original judgment and refusals of reconsideration were sifted out or dismissed at rule 3(10) hearings. Lord Fairley directed that no further action be taken in the relevant appeals.

• Employment Tribunal, Glasgow: The tribunal dismissed the unfair-dismissal complaint on its merits by a judgment entered on 27 November 2019. Subsequent reconsideration applications, including the 2023 application considered by the President of Employment Tribunals in Scotland, were refused.