United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR DOUGHTY (OF COUNSEL) APPEARING UNDER THE EMPLOYMENT LAW APPEAL ADVICE SCHEME (ELAAS)


 


JUDGE WILSON: This has been the preliminary hearing in the proposed Appeal by the original Applicant, Mr Lopez, and this Tribunal has been very considerably helped by Mr Doughty of ELAAS who has been advising Mr Lopez. We are indebted to him for the clarification of many things to do with this case.

1. The facts of the matter are that the Appellant was employed by the Respondent as a chef for a number of years. There came a time, in 1998, when the Respondent had to close its restaurant for building repairs. The Respondent's staff were told whether they were to be kept on or not. The Appellant was one of those who was to be kept on but the repairs took longer than anticipated. The payments he received became irregular and eventually he sought other employment.
2. He submitted an application claiming that he had been constructively dismissed or unfairly dismissed and that there had been unlawful deduction of wages as well. He set out the particulars upon which he relied in a sheet which was attached to his IT.1. The IT.3 was not received or placed with the papers until the morning of the hearing, but a long letter had been written on the 27^th October on behalf of the Respondent company. It is clear from that document that there was an issue about holiday pay. It appears that there might well have been a misunderstanding about what a sum of money which was paid related to. Certainly, Mr Doughty has told us that there is still an issue over the holiday pay, which apparently related to the previous year. The holiday year for this company ran from May until May.
3. However that may be, the Tribunal concluded that the Respondent did not unfairly dismiss the Applicant and gave reasons for that decision. In particular, dealing in paragraph 6 with the things which had happened during August 1998, Mr Doughty, on behalf of Mr Lopez today, complains that there was an error of law. The Tribunal failed to make any proper finding as to the effect of the offer made by the Respondent and the Appellant's behaviour in finding new employment and not reporting for work on 26^th September.
4. We have come to the conclusion that this matter should proceed to a full hearing for argument on the question (and solely on the question) whether the Employment Tribunal fell into an error of law in failing to decide how the contract was ended in view of the options in paragraph 6 of the Decision. We will order that before the matter is listed for final hearing, the correspondence to do with the sum of money which has been paid, that is to say, the letters dated 28^th April, 12^th May, an undated letter from the Pimlico Law Centre and the letters of 1^st June and 7^th July - a bundle of 5 - should be submitted to the Chairman for his comments.
5. We further order that the letter referred to in the decision as "R.1", written on behalf of Mr Lopez to the employers and not replied to, should be available for the full hearing and we direct that the matter placed in Category C with an estimate of 2 hours.