At the Tribunal | |
Before
HER HONOUR JUDGE A WAKEFIELD
MS S R CORBY
MR D J HODGKINS CB
APPELLANT | |
RESPONDENT |
Transcript of Proceedings
JUDGMENT
Revised
For the Appellant | NO APPEARANCE OR REPRESENTATION BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT |
For the Respondent | NO APPEARANCE OR REPRESENTATION BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE RESPONDENT |
HER HONOUR JUDGE A WAKEFIELD
"Argument here centred around a letter to be found at page 14 of the Respondents' bundle which contained some variations to the terms and conditions of the Applicant's contract of employment, particularly in relation to his salary, and says in clause 4: "The employee to receive an annual allowance of £500. This would apply towards the use of an employee's personal car and on rare occasions for Muslim Aid business." The Applicant's contention was that this meant that he was entitled to receive a sum of £500 per annum as a car allowance. The Respondents said that this was not so and that the intention of the clause was that the Applicant should receive sums up to £500 for the use of his car for the Respondents' business. We find that the construction of this clause is to be in favour of the Applicant and that the intention was that he was to receive an annual car allowance of £500 in recognition of the fact that he did use his car for the Respondents' business."
In accordance with that finding, the Employment Tribunal in the decision now the subject of appeal, awarded a sum in respect of the car allowance up to the day of dismissal, that is up to
30 January 1999. The Employment Tribunal, however, did not award any sum under this head for the subsequent 8 month period on the basis of which they had otherwise awarded compensation for wronglful dismissal. This appears to us to be an omission which was an error of law. We therefore award the appropriate pro rata sum of £333.33.
"The Applicant for the 8 month period, in addition to amounts awarded, would also have earned 20 days paid holiday. That is at 30 days per year, for which the Employment Tribunal should have awarded £1,750 in line with point 9(iii) of the decision, which awarded 2 days pay for untaken holidays for the 1 month period the Applicant was in employment."
That latter 1 month period was January 1999.
"In calculating holidays for the period the Applicant was in employment during 1999, there is an error in calculation. As per Applicant's employment contract, annual holidays from
1 January were to increase to 30 per year. So the 'holidays for the month the Applicant was employed in 1999' should have been 2.5 days rather than 2 days. This resulted in an under-calculation of £43.75."
Although this particular aspect of the grounds of appeal was not specifically referred to in the decision on the Preliminary Hearing at this Appeal Tribunal we do not consider that the Appellant is now prevented from raising it. It has always been in his Notice of Appeal. We agree that the Employment Tribunal made an error in awarding compensation for January 1999 on the basis of 2 rather than 2.5 days. We therefore increase the award under that head by £43.75.