I am looking for help.

We have a case where the client with mental health problems lost her appeal and has sent a letter by herself may I add !!!, into the Tribunal service which may identify an error in law. (unfortunately I have not seen the letter as at todays date as we are trying to get a copy of it)

Can I ask the tribunal to treat this as a letter of complaint and submit a request for leave to appeal with the clients authorisation?

If her request is refused and they do not accept our letter identifying an error (because they treat her letter as a request) can I go direct to the upper tribunal service and identify an error in law albeit this is different information that was submitted to the Tribunal Service?

Any help appreciated and if possible if could direct me to the law I would be most grateful?

Wed 01-Apr-09 04:55 PM by past caring 2

Don't worry about your client's letter. You only need to worry about time limits. So long as you are within time and authorised to act, you can submit subsidiary reasons when applying for leave and can amend or withdraw the reasons already submitted by your client. You effectively get two bites of the cherry with this - if you are refused leave/a set-aside by the First-Tier Tribunal then you do not need to stick with identical reasons when applying for leave to the Upper Tribunal - you can amend, elaborate or rely on entirely different reasons.

I don't think you need to make any references to the law in regard to the above - it's bread and butter to the Upper Tribunal and it's best not to overburden your submissions with superfluous citations. Concentrate on the actual errors of law in the tribunal's decision. In regard to those, you may need legal references, although if the error is obvious and uncontentious (e.g. claimant refused mid-rate care in DLA appeal on basis that help twice a night is not "frequent attention" - tribunal applies wrong statutory test) you can get away without them.