In Chowles v West the claim form was sent to the employer who failed to put in his response (ET3) which resulted in a default judgement being awarded against him amounting to an award for £18,000. Sounds simple enough.
The respondent(employer) then applied for a review of the judgement on the basis that the claimand had spelt his name wrong on the originating application (ET1), that the employer's address address had not included his full post code, and consequently he had not received the form. The employment tribunal judge carried out a review but upheld the judgement.
Judge McMullen of the EAT decided otherwise however and quashed the judgment. His reasoning was that in the absence of a properly filled out ET1 form, a telephone conversation between an ACAS officer and the respondent could not be considered as his having received notice of the proceedings (in reference to rule 34(3)).
In light of the mistakes in the addressing of the ET1 the employer would have to be believed when he said he hadn't received the notice of the claim.
Judge McMullen remitted the case to be heard by a new tribunal.
If you are running a tribunal case try to keep an eye on the detail. Your employer's lawyer will!
The ruling in this case can be found
Here