United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	MR S GORTON (of Counsel) Steggles & Mather Solicitors 121a Saughall Road Blacon Chester CH1 5ET


 


JUDGE BYRT QC: This is a preliminary hearing in respect of an appeal against a decision on quantum of an Industrial Tribunal sitting at Leeds on 2 April 1996, having earlier found that the Appellants had been guilty of unfair dismissal and breach of contract.

The Respondents, following their dismissal, became partners in a business of motor traders. They secured a bank loan through the agency of Mr Elliott, who was a former director of the Appellant Company. To arrange that loan, he had made use of the services of another Company which was, again, his own, called Kanica Properties Ltd. Part of the history of events related in the Tribunal's reasons, is that the Respondents, Mr Dyson and Mr Earle, somehow found their way onto the books of Kanica Properties Ltd. Therefore the Tribunal had to consider whether that meant that an employer-employee relationship had been developed between the Company and these two gentleman. With the greatest of care, in paragraph 3 of the their reasons, they came to the conclusion that they remained self-employed.

However, when it comes to the question of assessing the Respondents' earnings from running their motor trade business, Mr Gorton, who has appeared on behalf of the Appellants, has demonstrated to our satisfaction that there is a certain ambiguity about the figures, disclosed in paragraph 6 of the Industrial Tribunal's reasons . It would seem that the drawings to which he has been referring, have been considerably in excess of that which it would have been permissible for these two people to draw from their self-employed business even having regard to the credit facilities they had through the bank. He suggests this income is significantly greater than that which has been attributed to them by the Industrial Tribunal when they found that they were each limited to £12,000.

We feel that the reasons set out in paragraph 6 of the tribunal's reasons originally gives insufficient information to enable us to be sure that they have approached this matter in the right and proper way. We think that this matter ought to go forward to a full hearing and that to assist the Tribunal at that stage they should have the notes of the Chairman dealing with this issue of remedy. Accordingly, we give a direction that the Chairman's notes on remedy be made available to the full Tribunal.