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	United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Hussain v. City Living (Leeds) (t/a Morgans) & Ors [2000] UKEAT 387_00_0507 (5 July 2000) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2000/387_00_0507.html Cite as: [2000] UKEAT 387_00_0507, [2000] UKEAT 387__507

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APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR HUSSAIN IN PERSON.


 


JUDGE WILCOX:

1. This is an appeal from the Employment Tribunal sitting at Leeds. The decision being in a reserved judgment of 14 February 2000 in these terms:

"The unanimous decision of the Employment Tribunal is that the Applicants complaint that the first, second and third Respondents unlawfully discriminated against him on the grounds of his race is not well founded and that complaint is therefore dismissed."

We have had argued before us by Mr Hussain in his principle compendious ground of appeal, that this was a perverse finding. He attacks the whole of the evidence and the approach of the Tribunal. We remind ourselves that the Tribunal is a body that is charged with judging complaints as an industrial jury, that has the advantage of seeing and hearing witnesses, of hearing in particular witnesses being cross examined and having their evidence tested. One thing that we are clear about is this is that Mr Hussain is a talented person. This is evident for two reasons:

1. The quality of his documentation and his written arguments

2. The manner in which he has presented his case before us today.

2. We do not attach any importance to the fact that, he told us, that he has been before a number of Tribunals and knows what the procedure is, and that in relation to some of those Tribunals achieved findings in his favour and in some he has failed. We are not dealing with a history; we are dealing with a complaint, a Tribunal and the litigant before us. I have made observations about how Mr Hussain appears from the papers and his submissions before us. He is clearly someone, who if he has something advantageous by way of evidence to put before a Tribunal, would not shrink from putting before the Tribunal, or from developing a point or cross examining upon the basis of it.
3. We are satisfied, that Mr Hussain put a comprehensive case before the Tribunal with a degree of skill and persuasiveness. The fact that a Tribunal does not in its written findings allude to every tiny detail and the minutiae of every fact does not of course mean that it has not taken those matters on board. Mr Hussain realises that in seeking to argue before us, perversity of finding that it is a difficult burden for him to discharge. He has only got to show that it is arguably perverse, he has not got to show that it was perverse. He identified his task at the outset quoting May LJ in Neale v Hereford & Worcester County Council [1986] IRLR 168. Does the finding of the Employment Tribunal on all the evidence found lead to the conclusion of an objective Tribunal looking at it; "My goodness that was certainly wrong."
4. We have read with very great care the papers before us and listened to what has been said by Mr Hussain. We cannot on the basis of that reactive test come to a conclusion – "My goodness that was certainly wrong." Mr Hussain has sought to assist us to that conclusion by carefully selecting passages that would exemplify the wrong or the defaulting approach of the Tribunal, in relation to matters of fact. By way of example, he drew our attention to newspaper reports, particularly, in the Daily Mail categorising him as a 'Professional Litigant' identified in the article entitled: 'Meet the Tribunal King'
5. He drew our attention to the article of 24 July, but said that there were other articles as well. He said that there was cross examination on the basis of that article, by him of the first and possibly the second Respondent. They accepted that they had seen that document. He deals with that in the course of his submissions at 6 (u):

6 (u) "I claimed that a number of employers whom I have brought cases against and the legal representatives of the respondents and got together and discussed ways of discrediting my actions and thought of ways of fighting my cases by sharing their pool of information and resources, and solicitors advising their clients how best to cobble together explanations to be excused from the way in which they had dealt with me. In particular, I referred to various newspaper articles about me published between 1 June 1999 and 24 July 1999, including one by the Daily Mail which the respondents accepted during cross-examination that they had seen and read. The second respondent's evidence on this was that he "felt a fool because he had walked into the trap and been caught." At paragraph 26 of the decision, the tribunal failed to even record anywhere in the decision that the respondents became aware of the fictitious job application submitted by me in the name of Miss Laura Stevens from as far back as June 1999, and according to their own evidence, certainly no later than July 1999 following the Daily Mail article."

6. As to the chronology, we note that the article is dated 24 July. It is right that there is mention of Miss Stevens in there. The assertion of the Appellant that that was an acceptance by the second respondent:

"He felt a fool because he had walked into the trap and been caught."

seems to us to have no credible basis if someone had seen that article and had admitted that he had seen the article, and that it had blown the gaff, it would be wholly incredible in our view that knowing of the fictitious applicant he would go on and produce a concocted document relating to her. There would have been no point.

7. It simply does not take the matter any further. One is entitled to say if they had read the article, well 'so what'. How would that evidence have effected a Tribunal? It would not in our judgment have taken the matter any further. It would not have undermined their approach to the essential questions that they were looking at. We have trawled through the findings of the Tribunal. We come to these conclusions:

1. They directed themselves properly in law.

2. When there were matters that could be blemishes upon the credit on the Respondents, they took those in account; they dealt with them. They saw and heard the witnesses.

8. We find that looking at the decision as a whole, there is nothing that we can say that gives rise to an arguable case that the finding was perverse. There are identified no errors of law. We therefore dismiss this appeal.