United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	Mr K Munde (In person)
For the Respondent	No appearance by or on behalf of the Respondents


 


JUDGE JOHN BYRT QC: This is a an appeal against a decision promulgated on 21 April 1997 of the Employment Tribunal Chairman sitting along at Bury St Edmonds. By his decision he held that there had been no breach of contract by the employers in the manner in which they dismissed the employee, Mr Munde because, as he said, an employer can dismiss an employee at any time, subject only to the necessary contractual notice of termination. Mr Munde now appeals.

Quite shortly, the facts are that Mr Munde was employed under a written contract of employment dated August 1995 as a Senior Engineer. At the relevant material time, he was employed on something called the Kegworth Project. In July or August 1996, a dispute occurred between himself and his employers about the specification which should be used in processing this project. One issue was whether it should be the Respondents' specification, or one of his own devising. At a meeting of 7 August 1995 he was dismissed by his employers and paid one weeks' salary in lieu of notice.

Mr Munde's IT1 with which he commenced these proceedings made plain that he was alleging that the Respondents had failed to follow their own disciplinary procedures incorporated into his contract. Had they done so he says that would have postponed his dismissal by one week and he claims that he is entitled to be paid for that one week.

It would seem to us that looking at the extended reasons of the Chairman, he never canvassed this point and in his failure to do so, we consider he has fallen into an error of law. Having regard to the terms of paragraph 2 of his decision, it is suggested he has approached this issue in the wrong way, and this lead him to dismissing Mr Munde's claim. We think this appeal must be allowed and the case remitted to another Tribunal. When this matter is reconsidered, we suggest that the Employment Tribunal should ask the four questions referred to in the judgment of the President of this Court when he gave leave for this matter to proceed to a full hearing. Those questions are as follows: One, was the disciplinary procedure a contractual entitlement? Having regard to the terms of the letter written to the Employment Tribunal dated 7 April 1998, it would seem that the employers accept that the disciplinary procedure was part of Mr Munde's contract. The second question is if the answer to the first is yes, did it apply in this case. The third question is if it did, was that procedure followed and four, if it was not, what loss if any, was suffered by Mr Munde, that is bearing in mind Mr Munde's own modest limitation on his claim, namely the 7 days of wage remuneration.

Subject to those directions we allow this appeal and are of the view that it should be considered by a differently constituted Tribunal.