Chris Bryden & Michael Salter report on a decision which makes a point that many civil practitioners wish had been made in Mitchell
Employment practitioners have been able to let the paroxysms arising out of the judgment in Andrew Mitchell MP v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2013] EWCA Civ 1537, [2014] 2 All ER 430 largely pass them by. The intrusion into employment law of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 in the context of relief from sanctions was largely confined to the decision of the Court of Appeal in St Albans Girls’ School & Anor v Neary [2009] EWCA Civ 1214, [2010] 2 Costs LR 191 as further explained in Thind v Salvesen Logistics Ltd (2010) UKEAT/0487/09/DA, [2010] All ER (D) 05 (Sep). However, given the developments in the civil courts following Mitchell , employment lawyers have been holding their collective breath pending consideration by the Employment Appeal Tribunal of an analogous case. That has now taken place, with Mr Justice Langstaff giving his considered view of the applicability of Mitchell to the employment tribunal in the very recent case of Harris v Academies
