Appeal No. EAT/538/90

	EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
	4 ST. JAMES'S SQUARE, LONDON, SW1 4JU

		At the Tribunal
		On 9 October 1991

	Before

	SIR DAVID CROOM-JOHNSON DSC VRD PC

	MISS J W COLLERSON

	MR D A C LAMBERT

MISS R MILNER	APPELLANT

H PARFITT & SONS	RESPONDENTS

	Transcript of Proceedings

	JUDGMENT

	PRELIMINARY HEARING

Revised

	APPEARANCES

For the Appellant	 The Appellant in person

	

	SIR DAVID CROOM-JOHNSON:  This is an Appeal by Miss Milner who was employed by the Respondents H Parfitt & Sons Ltd.  She was employed secretarially and her employment lasted only from 1 March 1990 to 22 March 1990, a total period of three weeks.  It appears that she was then dismissed and she began proceedings under the Employment Protection Act alleging that she had been dismissed unfairly.

	When this came before the Industrial Tribunal as a Preliminary point, they ruled that it was bound to fail because the Industrial Tribunal could only consider a claim for unfair dismissal if she had been employed for two years and this was only a matter of three weeks.  They gave their decision on 31 August 1990 in which they said that and they said 

.."If the case were to proceed it would be bound to fail.  Therefore it is right to strike it out".

	Upon that, somebody, we do not know who, advised that if Miss Milner did not like that decision she should appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal and she has, but she has put forward as a reason for pursuing the claim in spite of the fact that she was not employed continuously for more than three weeks by saying that what she now wishes to allege against Parfitts is fraud and deception.  The fraud and deception in her letters to this Tribunal are not really very clearly expressed and she suggests that she would be entitled to very large sums of damages if she were able to bring home that.  Unfortuately the Industrial Tribunal set up by the Employment Protection Acts are a statutory code operating a statutory code and are not entitled to consider claims for damages at common law for fraud and deception and in those circumstances although Miss Milner wants to amend her application to allege that she is entitled to such damages, it would be quite fruitless because the Industrial Tribunal would still have no jurisdiction.

	In the circumstances she applied for leave to amend her application but that must be refused because we cannot allow an amendment to bring forward a claim which is outside the jurisdiction of the Industrial Tribunal and in the circumstances this appeal by Miss Milner must be dismissed.