Procedural failure

Stanley Cole (Wainfleet) Ltd v Sheridan CA TLR 5 September

In delivering its decision, the employment tribunal cited a material and relevant reported authority to which reference had not been made during the hearing and to which the tribunal had not alerted the employer, who was acting in person. A procedural failure will not lead to proceedings being quashed or set aside unless substantial unfairness has occurred. It was not a serious irregularity simply because a judge cited decided cases which had not been referred to at the hearing. Judicial research would be stultified if it were so. The authority had to be shown to be central to the decision and not peripheral to it. It had to play an influential part in shaping the judgment. In the present case the authority was not central to the tribunal’s decision. Drawing attention to it during the course of argument would not have affected the way in which the case was presented. Moreover, the interests of justice do not demand that any shortcomings in a litigant in person’s presentation of his case should be overcome by affording him the indulgence of the chance to do better second time around.