United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR HAYWARD (Friend)
For the Respondent	NO APPEARANCE OR REPRESENTATION BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE RESPONDENT


 


JUDGE D M LEVY QC

1. This is an appeal by Mr Christopher Varley ('the Appellant') from a decision of the Employment Tribunal held at Sheffield on 4 October 2000 on a date when he did not attend the Tribunal. The decision was remitted to the parties on 18 October 2000. The Tribunal held that Mr A S Gill ('the Respondent') was entitled to receive from the Appellant £3,405.40. From that decision the Appellant appealed by Notice dated 22 November 2000.
2. Since that date a lot of water has flown under the bridge. At a Preliminary Hearing of 12 December 2001, of this appeal before a panel chaired by Maurice Kay J an order was made that the matter should come for a full hearing on the issue as to whether or not the Respondent was employed by Mr Varley or a company of which he was apparently the sole or the principal shareholder, that company being Protea Personal Productivity Ltd ("Protea").
3. The Respondent has not appeared today on the appeal, the Appellant has a friend, Mr Hayward, representing him.
4. We have seen, among other evidence, a contract which clearly shows that at the mentioned time, Protea, not the Appellant was the employer of the Respondent. The Respondent had stated in his IT3 that he was not the Appellant's employer. Even without the Appellant attending the hearing, the Tribunal would have needed to be satisfied that the Respondent was his employer. He appeared not to have shown the Tribunal the contract signed by him, which we have seen. Thus the Tribunal reached a wrong conclusion.
5. We have considered whether it would be appropriate to send this back for a further hearing before a Tribunal, but as it is abundantly clear that the wrong Respondent was in fact chosen by the Appellant in his application form. It therefore seems appropriate for us on this appeal to substitute our decision for that made below, to dismiss the Respondent's application.
6. We can see that the point was not clearly taken on the Notice of Appearance by the Respondent. That has been explained by Mr Varley, because the company was in liquidation and not all correspondence, apparently, came to him.
7. In the circumstances we will allow this appeal in the way which we have mentioned.