At the Tribunal | |
Before
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE CHARLES
MR J R RIVERS
MR H SINGH
APPELLANT | |
RESPONDENT |
Transcript of Proceedings
JUDGMENT
PRELIMINARY HEARING
For the Appellants | MR C HENSON (Representative) Professional Personnel Consultants Ltd Enterprise House Great North Road Little Paxton Cambs PE19 6BP |
MR JUSTICE CHARLES:
"The majority decision of the Tribunal is that the applicant was unfairly dismissed.
"1 The Appellant contends that the Employment Tribunal imposed too high a standard upon them when they applied Section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act.
2 In reaching their decision they applied a speculative approach, namely a 'what if' proposition by introducing issues which were not germane to the claim against or subsequent actions of the Appellant.
3 They substituted their own decision as to what was 'the right course' that should have been adopted by the Appellant.
4 They misapplied both oral and written evidence given.
5 They have therefore erred in law.
6 Your attention is drawn to the minority members' view (see page 12 paras (1) –(6) which support this appeal and are more reflective of the Appellants' position."
"(10) Particulars of the Job Description of both posts were sent to Mrs Mulley by letter of 4 November (Pages 176 and 177). The letter goes on to say:
'Please consider these two possible alternatives to redundancy and inform me by Tuesday 9 November 1999 if you wish to be considered as we are at the second interview stage for the permanent vacancy. (this referred to the Q.A. post).
Should you wish to be considered for either of these positions, your suitability will be evaluated against the second objective's selection criteria'.
(16) Mrs Mulley was told of the situation on November 11. Having been told that she would not be further considered for the Q.A. job, Mrs Mulley seems to have stated that she did not want to be assessed through an interview or any other process, but it is not clear to us that she was told that the external candidates for the Q.A. job had had an interview.
(17) We find that if Mrs Mulley had known that the other candidates had been interviewed, she would have asked for an interview.
(25) The company takes out a permanent health insurance, which is provided by an organisation called Unum Ltd. Those members of the company who are in the company pension scheme are entitled to the benefit of permanent health insurance, but there is a deferred period before they become eligible for permanent health insurance of 26 continuous weeks of incapacity (Page 149) although paragraph 6.1.2 of the policy document (Page 158) provides:-
'Although the deferred period is normally a period of continuous absence, Unum will link periods of absence of at least two weeks duration through incapacity arising from the same course provided the deferred period is completed within twice the length of the deferred period'.
(26) It is clear that Mrs Mulley asked Mr Hoskin about the possibility of a permanent health insurance (PHI) claim. This was raised in the meeting of 2 November. Mr Hoskin told her what he believed to be true, namely that she would not be eligible because she had not been off work for six months."