United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR M WESTGATE (of Counsel) Instructed by: Mr R Thaliwal Messrs Millhouse & Rumble Solicitors New Oxford House 22-24 Halford Street Leicester LE1 1JB


 


JUDGE PETER CLARK: This is an appeal by Mr Wallis, the applicant before the Leicester Employment Tribunal sitting on 11th May 1998, against that tribunal's decision to dismiss his complaint of unfair dismissal on the grounds that there was no dismissal, he resigned his employment.

Mr Westgate accepts the proposition of law contained in paragraph 3 of the tribunal's extended reasons which is put in this way:

"3. ... a resignation can be revoked where the employee purports to resign in breach of contract; until such a resignation is accepted, it has no legal effect and can be revoked by the employee."

The facts as found by the tribunal include that on 11th October 1997 the appellant wrote a letter to Mr Bullock, the President of the Club, in which he indicated that he would resign from his employment as Club Secretary on 31st October.

There was before the tribunal a statement of terms of employment issued to the appellant which included a term that he was required to give the Club four weeks' notice of termination after four weeks' continuous employment. He began employment on 2nd October 1989. It would therefore appear to follow that the notice which he gave in his letter of 11th October was short notice and was in breach of the terms of his contract.

The tribunal found that on 13th October the appellant asked to withdraw his resignation. However the matter went before the Club Committee, and on 16th October they resolved not to accept the appellant's withdrawal of his resignation, but instead to accept it. His employment then ended.

The appeal against that decision is put in three different ways by Mr Westgate, first, whether the appellant was entitled to withdraw his resignation; secondly, where an employer accepts short notice of resignation by an employee, so that the contract is terminated, by whom is the termination effected, the employee or the employer? Thirdly, whether in the event that the appellant was not entitled to withdraw his resignation, he was entitled to resign because of the employer's conduct.

It seems to us that the first point in particular is strongly arguable, bearing in mind the observations of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Norwest Holst Group Administration Ltd v Harrison [1984] IRLR 419, at paragraph 19, observations not interfered with by the Court of Appeal on appeal at [1985] ICR 668. This case is different from Riordan v The War Office [1959] 3 All ER 552, where a valid contractual notice was given.

It seems to us that each of the matters raised in the appeal ought to be permitted to go forward to a full hearing.

The final point in the Notice of Appeal is a complaint that the tribunal should not have substituted Mr Bullock as a respondent when the true respondent was the Braunstone & District Working Men's Club Limited. That issue is accepted by the respondent in the respondent's PHD form.

We shall direct that the case be listed for four hours. Category C. There is no need for Chairman's Notes of Evidence. There will be further directions.

For the avoidance of doubt, the respondent to this appeal will by consent be Braunstone & District Working Men's Club and Institute Limited in substitution for Mr Bullock.