United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR J BOWERS (of Counsel) appearing under the Employment Law Appeal Advice Scheme


 


JUDGE JOHN BYRT QC: This is a preliminary hearing in relation to an appeal against a decision of the Industrial Tribunal sitting at Liverpool. The decision was promulgated on 12 May 1997. It dismissed the claim of the Applicant, Mrs Doddridge that she had been unfairly dismissed.

Very shortly the facts are that she had been employed by the Respondents since a date in August 1990 as a finance manager. The business in the intervening years between then and 1996 had increased considerably and the result was that the Respondent's management decided they needed a finance director who was fully conversant with the commercial scene and had some experience in commerce. Mrs Doddridge was given the opportunity of applying for that new position but she was unsuccessful and on 30 August 1996 another man, Mr Tony Baden, was appointed instead. Having a financial director over her, with her remaining merely as the financial manager, would seem in the first place to have implications for her role and status. She was assured, however, that her salary would remain the same; she was assured that her title would remain the same, but Mrs Doddridge was intent on finding out exactly what were going to be the detailed alterations in the role she had to fulfil. One alteration we noticed for instance was that as financial manager, she had the opportunity of sitting in on all the senior management committee meetings and policy formulating processes. It would seem that, as a result of the appointment of a financial director, she would be excluded from such meetings saving and accept as was necessary.

Mrs Doddridge tried to find out from her employers what the new role was to be in detail. She wanted a job description of it but by the time she retired on 4 November 1996 she had still not been given any such job description. One was obtained in time for the Tribunal hearing because, as a result of Mrs Doddridge's own retirement from the Company, they had to find a replacement and in doing that they had to get out a job description for insertion in an advertisement. But there was no such job description available to Mrs Doddridge before she retired on 4 November.

We think that it is an arguable point as to whether that failure amounts to a fundamental breach of her contract such as to entitle her to resign and claim constructive dismissal.

The Industrial Tribunal considered the alterations in Mrs Doddridge's contract entailed in her taking up a subordinate position to the new director and quite plainly they did not think that there was going to be any fundamental or serious change in her role or status. However, in the absence of a job description we think it would be difficult for them to have come to a clear conclusion about that. Accordingly, we think it right that this matter should go through to a full hearing in order that this Tribunal might consider whether the failure to produce such a written job description before she retired amounted to a fundamental breach. As we understand it, that encapsulates ground 6(a) of the notice of appeal and ground 6(g) which is included by way of amendment.