Owen & Briggs v James
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE STEPHENSON,SIR DAVID CAIRNS,LORD JUSTICE DONALDSON |
| Judgment Date | 15 June 1982 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1982] EWCA Civ J0615-4 |
| Docket Number | 82/0708 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 15 June 1982 |
[1982] EWCA Civ J0615-4
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
(MR. JUSTICE SLYNN)
Royal Courts of Justice
Lord Justice Stephenson
Lord Justice Donaldson
and
Sir David Cairns
82/0708
EAT 7/81
In the Matter of an Appeal under Section 136 (1)(D) of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 from the decision of an Industrial Tribunal sitting at Leeds and entered in the Register on the 2nd day of October 1979.
MR. MICHAEL WEST Q.C. and MR. LIONEL SCOTT (instructed by Messrs. Wray Smith & Co., Solicitors, London EC4Y 7DD, agents for Messrs. Owen & Briggs, Solicitors, Huddersfield HD1 1JX) appeared on behalf of the Appellants (Appellants).
MR. ELDRED TABACHNIK Q.C. and MISS E. LAING (instructed by Messrs. Bindman & Partners, Solicitors, London NW1 2SA) appeared on behalf of the Respondent (Respondent).
I ask Sir David Cairns to give the first judgment.
This is an appeal by Messrs. Owen & Briggs, a firm of solicitors in Huddersfield, from a decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, presided over by Mr. Justice Slynn, upholding the decision of an Industrial Tribunal by which it was held that the solicitors acted in breach of the Race Relations Act 1976 by their treatment of a Miss P.V. James, who is the respondent to the appeal. Her case, which was upheld by the Industrial Tribunal and, on appeal, by the Employment Appeal Tribunal, was that she had been treated less favourably on racial grounds than the solicitors would have treated other persons.
At the material time Miss James was a coloured English girl of the age of 19. She had had some academic qualifications and some qualifications in shorthand and typing. In March of 1979 she saw an advertisement in a local newspaper for a shorthand typist. That was in fact an advertisement by Messrs. Owen & Briggs, but the advertisement referred only to their telephone number. She got in touch with them and was interviewed by Mr. Briggs, the senior partner in the firm, but she did not get the job.
About six weeks later, in the month of May, there appeared another advertisement, rather differently worded, in the same newspaper, for a shorthand typist for litigation solicitors. The advertisement in fact contained the same telephone number as the earlier one, but she said she did not observe that. She did ring that telephone number to say that she was a candidate for this post and she realised that the gentleman to whom she spoke was in fact Mr. Briggs, by whom she had been interviewed on the previous occasion.
On the telephone he asked her to come for an interview, and she did so; she again saw Mr. Briggs. He did not ask her to sit down; he began the interview by asking her why she had come again. He said that he did not see any point in interviewing her again, and a somewhat hostile discussion developed. Eventually Mr. Briggs said that he did not want her to come back on a third occasion, and she then made the observation that she did not want to come anyway because she did not like bigots..He then told her that the interview was over and she left.
On the afternoon of the same day there was another applicant for the post, a Miss Horner. In the course of the interview with her Mr. Briggs asked her about her parents and apparently asked her what her mother's maiden name was; she said that it was Brook. Mr. Briggs said "I like that; it's a nice English name", and he went on to tell Miss Horner that a coloured girl had been there that morning; that she had been unemployed for three years (which was a fact) and he added: "I can't understand why an English employer would want to take on a coloured girl when English girls are available", and he offered the job to Miss Horner. As the result of an approach by Miss James to the local Race Relations Office, the matter came before the Industrial Tribunal on her application.
The evidence on behalf of the respondents to that application, the present appellants, was that Miss James had been rejected because of her lack of employment over that period of about three years, because of her unsatisfactory demeanour and because she had called Mr. Briggs a bigot. The Industrial Tribunal found that the "bigot" remark came late in the interview and that it was not a real ground for refusing to consider her.
Another ground that had been put forward by the appellants was that she had not mentioned on the telephone that she had applied earlier for the post that was offered. The Tribunal did not accept that that was a genuine ground, or that Miss James had acted in any way deceitfully in relation to that matter.
A still further reason given for not appointing her was that she was inexperienced, but the Industrial Tribunal was not satisfied that this was so because there were two vacancies and one of them required no experience.
Having considered all these matters, the Tribunal came to the conclusion that an important factor, though not the sole factor, in the conduct of the appellants in not employing Miss James was her colour; they found her case proved and awarded her £75.00 for injury to feelings and for loss of employment for a few weeks—she had in fact got another job in a comparatively short time.
There was an appeal from that decision to the Employment Appeal Tribunal, which found that there was no error of law in the decision of the Industrial Tribunal and they dismissed the appeal. The further appeal comes to us by reason of leave given by another Division of this court.
The grounds put forward in the notice of appeal are misdirection and coming to the decision on insufficient evidence. I remind myself that the appeal to this court, like the appeal to the Appeal Tribunal, is an appeal on law only.
The relevant law—I think the whole of the relevant law—as it was in force at the material time is to be found in the Race Relations Act 1976, sections 1 and 4, and in really only a few words in each of those sections.
Section 1(1) reads:
"A person discriminates against another in any circumstances relevant for the purposes of any provision of this Act if—(a) on racial grounds he treats that other less favourably than he treats or would treat other persons".
Section 4(1) reads:
"It is unlawful for a person, in relation to employment by him at an establishment in Great Britain, to discriminate against another—(a) in the arrangements he makes for the purpose of determining who should be offered that employment; or…(c) by refusing or deliberately omitting to offer him that employment".
The Industrial Tribunal held that there was an unlawful discrimination under (a); if not under (a) then that there was unlawful discrimination under (c).
The grounds of appeal to the Appeal Tribunal were numerous; the grounds of appeal to this court are happily limited to five, and I will deal with them in turn. Since each ground contains the words "…wrong in law, and/or misdirected themselves, and/or based their decision or purported decision on no or insufficient evidence", it will be sufficient if I omit those words except for the word "wrong" in referring to each of the grounds.
The first ground is that the Industrial Tribunal were wrong…in finding that the appellants had unlawfully discriminated against the respondent in their arrangements made for the purpose of offering employment within the Race Relations Act 1976 section 4(1)(a). I express no opinion as to whether the Industrial Tribunal were right or wrong under (a). I agree with Mr. West, appearing on behalf of the appellants in this court, that it is difficult to see in what way the arrangements for interviewing Miss...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Ms M Hamilton v Fife Council: 4104090/2016 and 4106953/2017
...of the decision in the EAT (21 and 22 July 1993) referring to and adopting what was said by Stevenson LJ in Owen 15 and Briggs v James [1982] ICR 618 at 626):“It is clear from that decision that a reason which is an important factor in the operative decision is quite enough, to quote Sir Da......
-
Mr M Gaskell v Ministry of Justice: 1802032/2022 and Others
...was wholly motivated to act as he did because of the protected acts, Nagarajan v Agnew [1994] IRLR 61. In Owen and Briggs v James [1982] IRLR 502 Knox J said:“Where an employment tribunal finds that there are mixed motives for the doing of an act, one or some but not all of which constitute......
-
Onu v Akwiwu and another
... ... ) 30 May 2007 ,E A T Nambalat v Taher [ 2012 ] EWCACiv 1249 ;[ 2013 ] ICR 1024 ,CA Owen & Briggs v James [ 1982 ] ICR 618 ,C A Patmalniece v Secretary of State for Work and P ensions ... ...
-
Nagarajan v London Regional Transport
...cause of the less favourable treatment is the fact that the alleged discriminator has done a protected act as to causation see Owen Briggs v. James [1982] I.R.L.R. 502 (C.A.) Counsel were in agreement, and I would accept, that there is realistically no scope for any other interpretation. C......