Top judge orders fresh hearing in dispute between council and ex-lawyer

Details: 09.Nov.2015

The President of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, Sir Brian Langstaff QC, has ordered a fresh hearing in the dispute between Essex County Council and Evelyne Jarrett, a former senior lawyer at Essex Legal Services.

Jarrett brought a claim against the council after losing her job in a restructuring in 2012.

The Employment Tribunal ruled in her favour in September 2014 on each of the three claims she advanced:

That she had been directly discriminated against, victimised and harassed by reason of race;
That she had been unfairly dismissed; and
That there had been a breach of contract.

The county council subsequently lodged an appeal. Philip Thomson, Director for Essex Legal Services, who was named in the case, meanwhile stood aside from his role as President of Lawyers in Local Government pending the outcome.

The EAT President, Sir Brian Langstaff QC, gave an oral judgment last week ordering a new hearing. He is expected to issue his written ruling in the next eight weeks.

It is understood that Sir Brian concluded that the Employment Tribunal’s reasoning was insufficiently clear and that while it had identified the correct legal tests, it did not follow them carefully in its analysis.

However, the judge is also report to have ordered that the new tribunal should be bound by the findings of fact made by the first tribunal.

Cllr Derrick Louis, Cabinet Member for Transformation Corporate and Traded Service at Essex, said: “I am very pleased that the tribunal appeal found in favour of the county council. We have said consistently that we did not recognise the findings of the original tribunal and I believe this result bears that out.”

Anthony Robinson, Jarrett’s lawyer and a consultant solicitor at law firm Scott-Moncrieff & Associates, said: “This is an appalling case. The Employment Appeal Tribunal vindicated the original findings of the Employment Tribunal by ordering that the findings of fact should stand for the remitted hearing. Those findings of fact were an awful indictment of the council and how it treated our client.

“The council has spent an enormous amount of money fighting this rather than paying our client the amount the Employment Tribunal had awarded her.”