Bilal Miah v London Ambulance Service NHS Trust

The EAT will generally not entertain an argument that was not advanced before the Employment Tribunal. It may permit a new point only in exceptional circumstances; the prospect of reopening factual issues and requiring a further hearing weighs strongly against doing so. A tribunal’s failure to decide a point never argued before it is ordinarily not an error of law. A litigant in person remains personally responsible for the grounds advanced on appeal and for following the procedure for seeking to raise a new argument.

Bilal Miah v London Ambulance Service NHS Trust concerned an ambulance crew member’s claim for disruption payments for Christmas shifts. Before the Employment Tribunal, the claimant argued that core shifts attracted the payments. The Tribunal rejected that construction and dismissed the claim.

The appeal was permitted to proceed only on a different argument: that the respondent should not have changed the shifts from overtime to core hours, or should have allowed them to be changed back. The claimant had not advanced that conversion argument before the Tribunal. The EAT had to decide whether he could raise it on appeal. He also sought a preparation time order.

1. Appeal dismissed. The only grounds permitted to proceed concerned the conversion argument. The claimant’s skeleton argument also sought to revive the construction argument, but that ground had been dismissed by consent and was not before the EAT.

2. The claimant had not advanced the conversion argument at the Employment Tribunal hearing. The issue there had been clearly identified as whether the disruption payment applied to core shifts that were not overtime. The EAT referred to the longstanding rule that a point not argued below may be raised on appeal only in exceptional circumstances, particularly where it would create factual issues requiring a further hearing. It cited the helpful summary in CJ v PC [2024] EAT 182, [2025] I.C.R. 401. The EAT’s role is to review errors of law, and, save in exceptional circumstances, it is not an error of law to omit a point that was never argued. Finality in litigation means the appeal is not a second opportunity to advance a case that could have been put to the Tribunal.

3. No exceptional circumstances justified allowing the new point. The claimant had raised both arguments in correspondence but chose to advance only the construction argument at the hearing. There was no evidence that his mental health condition explained that choice. The documents and further disclosure he sought also showed that a new hearing and further evidence might be required, with resulting cost, delay and use of Tribunal resources.

4. The EAT gave practical guidance that litigants in person remain responsible for their appeal grounds, including where a representative has helped prepare them. The EAT Practice Direction procedure for a new argument applies to litigants in person; the EAT referred to Hancox v Sutherland and others [2026] EAT 139. It also stressed that an appellant using an ELAAS representative should identify any point not raised below and comply with the procedure where exceptional circumstances may justify it. The grounds in this case were drafted by an ELAAS representative, not generated by AI.

5. The preparation time order application was refused. The without-prejudice settlement discussions could not provide a basis for the order, and the unsuccessful appeal supplied no proper basis either.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal — In [2026] EAT 147 , the EAT dismissed the appeal. Earlier, the President rejected the initial grounds under Rule 3(7) of the EAT Rules; on challenge under Rule 3(10), Judge Beard permitted only the conversion grounds to proceed and dismissed the remaining grounds by consent.
• Employment Tribunal — Employment Judge Youngs dismissed the unlawful deductions complaint in a judgment sent to the parties on 25 July 2022. No citation for that judgment is stated.