United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	NO APPEARANCE BY OR REPRESENTATION ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT


 


JUDGE JOHN BYRT QC: This is a preliminary hearing in relation to an appeal against the decision of an Industrial Tribunal sitting at Exeter. The decision was promulgated on 4 September 1997 and by that decision the Industrial Tribunal held that the Respondent, Mr Griffiths, was the correct Respondent and accordingly, dismissed the other three Respondents that had been named.

In respect of Mr Jason Lipinski, the Tribunal awarded £765 for redundancy and unfair dismissal and payment in lieu of notice: and Mr Lee Lipinski £666 for payment in lieu of notice and unfair dismissal. Mr Griffiths appeals that decision on the basis, he says, that Sentbatch Ltd employed Jason Lipinski, and Sentbatch Ltd and Mirac Ltd employed Lee Lipinski.

The basis upon which he argues that that was how the matter should have been determined is set out in his Notice of Appeal. He relies on the fact that each of those companies had admitted in their IT3, that they were the employers of Jason and Lee Lipinski.

The sole issue in this case is as to what were the terms of the contract under which Jason and Lee were employed. The Industrial Tribunal came to a clear finding that each of them had negotiated with Mr Griffiths at the start of their employment with him, that Mr Griffiths at no stage indicated that he was acting on behalf of any or either of these two companies and what is more, failed to provide them with any contractual documentation. They therefore say that, if they are in error in their finding, the fault lies with Mr Griffiths because he should have known better.

Documentation before the Industrial Tribunal were various payslips which, from time to time, showed that each of these two people were employed by a company. However, the Industrial Tribunal came to the conclusion that this was a matter for arrangement between Mr Griffiths and the companies concerned. They organised things in that way for Mr Griffiths' own convenience rather than intending to affect in any way the contractual relationships he had with each of these two people. Accordingly, at the end of the day, the Industrial Tribunal found Mr Griffiths liable for the amounts already indicated at the outset of this decision.

We have considered the documentation afresh. There is a document setting out the main terms and conditions of employment of one called J. Lipinski, obviously a reference to Jason. That is a document which seems to have come into existence in 1994. It is probably a carbon copy but, unhappily, Mr Griffiths did not attend before the Industrial Tribunal to answer questions about that document, nor has he attended before us to argue any point which might arise from that. In addition, there are various returns to the Inland Revenue. Again, one assumes that it was Mr Griffiths or some other employee of either Sentbatch or Mirac who prepared those documents and once more, one does not know whether either Lipinski knew of the existence of these documents or representations which were contained in them.

In these circumstances the Industrial Tribunal came to the decision they did. The subject matter of their decision were matters of law or mixed law and fact. Having reconsidered the papers ourselves we do not see that the Tribunal misdirected themselves on a point of law in any way and, so far as they made findings of fact, we do not find that the decisions they came to were decisions which no reasonable Tribunal could have come to. On that score we see that we have no alternative but to dismiss this appeal. Accordingly, we do so.