United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	NEITHER PRESENT NOR REPRESENTED.
For the Respondent	NEITHER PRESENT NOR REPRESENTED.


 


MR COMMISSIONER HOWELL QC:

1. The judgment I am about to give has been considered and discussed with Mr Wright who is unable to be present for its formal delivery and he has authorised me to say that he agrees what Mr Straker and I are about to say on this appeal. This is an appeal by Raymond Wood Thermalight Windows Ltd against the decision of the Manchester Employment Tribunal, set out in extended reasons sent to the parties on 30 April 1999 after a hearing on 15 March 1999. The decision of the Tribunal was that a former employee of the Appellant, Mr James Richard Legg, had been dismissed by reason of redundancy and was entitled to a redundancy payment of £475.00. The issue before the Tribunal was whether the circumstances in which Mr Legg's employment with the company had come to an end did amount to a genuine redundancy, as he had contended and had been expressly stated by the company in a letter dated 16 January 1998 which purported to dismiss him on the ground of redundancy. The company has contended that that letter had been given to him for the purpose of helping to obtain future employment, and that despite what it had said, he had not been dismissed by reason of redundancy at all. The Employment Appeal Tribunal has on this appeal received an indication that the Appellant company does not intend to be present at this hearing but we have taken into account the written submission dated 21 March 2000 which has been received from the company as well as the documents annexed to their Notice of Appeal and the other material before the Tribunal which is in the Appeal File before us.
2. The contention put forward, similar to that advanced before the Tribunal, is that Mr Legg had not been made redundant by the company but had left of his own free will, since he did not take up an offer of employment at a different plant of the company when, as is not in dispute, the workplace where he had previously been employed was closed down. Mr Legg was a Glass Unit Sealer sealing glass panels in double glazing units which were manufactured or assembled by the Appellant Company. The written argument submitted by the company contends that although it would be more cost effective to simply pay the awarded redundancy payment of £475.00, this is a matter of principle . Although Mr Legg had asked for a letter confirming that he was being made redundant as he would otherwise find it difficult to get work, and had been given such a letter along with another employee who was being made redundant, in giving the letter to him the company had never for one moment thought that it would be made the basis of a claim for a redundancy payment, which they strongly resisted.
3. In our judgment the contentions put forward by the company, both to the Employment Tribunal and to us, give the Appellant no ground for any argument that this appeal should be allowed, or that the Tribunal decision erred in any respect. s.139 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 specifies quite clearly that an employee who is dismissed is dismissed by reason of redundancy, if the dismissal is wholly or mainly attributable to (among other things), the fact that his employer has ceased or intends to cease, to carry on business in the place where the employee was employed. That is beyond dispute that the position which arose here. Moreover as it happens, two separate Tribunals of fact have already considered the factual issue of whether Mr Legg was or was not dismissed by the Respondent, and found in clearly recorded findings of fact that he was so dismissed. The case was originally brought by way of ordinary proceedings in the Preston County Court and we have the benefit of the judgment of the Deputy District Judge who dealt with the case on 16 November 1998, which judgment was also available to the Employment Tribunal that subsequently dealt with the case. The District Judge referred to the documentary evidence, having noted that there was a dispute in the oral evidence between the parties, and found expressly that the letter of 16 January 1998 supported Mr Legg's contention that he had been made redundant. The district judge recorded that he found the letter was evidence of the truth of its content and he had not been persuaded to go behind it. He made a specific finding of fact that Mr Legg was made redundant and given two weeks notice of his termination of employment, for which he received payment. The question of any consequent entitlement to a redundancy award then came before the Employment Tribunal in subsequent proceedings. Again the Tribunal themselves expressly found (in paragraph 10 of their extended reasons on page 11 of the Appeal file before us) that the Respondents' letter of 16 January 1998 reflected the truth of the matter:

10. "This was a genuine redundancy situation; the applicant had been dismissed on 16 January 1998; the glass shop where he worked in Higher Walton had closed down and Mr Legg had been redundant."

4. The Appellant's letters and other documents, which have been submitted to this Tribunal, confirm the essential facts which justify that conclusion. The terms of the letter of 16 January 1998, for whatever reason Mr Legg was provided with it, appear to us merely to confirm the indisputable fact that his employment had been brought to an end by dismissal by the company and that this was on grounds of redundancy as defined. We therefore find no arguable ground for saying that the decision of the Employment Tribunal was erroneous in law on the issues raised by the Appellants.
5. The only additional point to be considered is the issue on which an earlier division of the Employment Appeal Tribunal appears to have directed that this case should forward for a full hearing, as recorded in the judgment of Holland J of 22 October 1999 at pages 27-30 of the appeal file before us. That judgment refers to some correspondence which had come to light, which suggested that the letter of 16 January 1998 had been issued at Mr Legg's own request. As the judgment of Holland J recorded in paragraph 4, referring to the Tribunal's extended reasons:

4. "We are unable to discern this correspondence having any apparent impact upon the Tribunal below, and a question is obviously raised as to whether it was ever before them. This in our judgment raises an issue that ought to be the subject of an inter-partes hearing. That being the case, we adjourn this matter for such hearing so that this Tribunal may look further into the matter."

6. Despite that indication given by this Tribunal in the judgment on the preliminary hearing, no further submission or indication has been put forward to show that this additional correspondence was put before the Employment Tribunal in a way that would have required it to deal with it as an issue on the appeal actually before them. There being no indication that this material was before the Tribunal in such form, we have concluded that there is no arguable ground for saying that the Tribunal fell into error in not having dealt with that correspondence expressly. Accordingly, there being no other arguable ground in our view for saying that the Tribunal's decision was erroneous, we unanimously dismiss this appeal.