THE INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNALS

CASE REF:    1904/10

CLAIMANT:	Brian King

RESPONDENT:	O’Kane Poultry Limited       

DECISION 

The unanimous decision of the tribunal is that the claimant was not unfairly dismissed by the respondent.

The title of the proceedings is amended to reflect the correct title of the respondent.

Constitution of Tribunal:

Chairman:	Ms J Knight

Members:	Mr A Kerr
	Mr T Martin

Appearances:

The claimant did not appear and was not represented.

The respondent was represented by Ms Rachel Best, Barrister at Law, instructed by Mills Selig Solicitors.

1.	The issue to be determined by the tribunal was whether the claimant was unfairly dismissed by the respondent contrary to Article 126 of the Employment Rights (NI) Order 1996.

2.	The claimant did not appear at the Hearing on 12 April 2011.  A Notice of Hearing was sent to the claimant to his address held by the Office of the Industrial Tribunals and the Fair Employment Tribunal by post on 28 March 2011.  The tribunal waited until 10.15 am and then decided to dispose of the proceedings in the absence of the claimant.  After the commencement of the Hearing, the tribunal was passed a copy of an email received by the Office of the Industrial Tribunals at 10.23 am that morning from the claimant which stated that: “Due to the fact that my new employers informed me last night that I couldn’t get permission to have Tuesday 12 April off, it is with regret that I must inform you that I can not attend the tribunal hearing scheduled for that date. If this means that my case is dismissed then so be it, it was out of my control”.

3.	The tribunal considered the contents of the originating claim form, the response, the claimant’s reply to an Order for Additional Information, documentation to which it was referred in a bundle prepared by the respondent and the oral evidence of Ms Norma Donaldson and Mr Patrick McAllister. The tribunal concluded on a balance of probabilities that the respondent has shown the reason for the claimant’s dismissal with effect from 13 May 2010 was redundancy, that he was fairly selected in accordance with redundancy selection criteria and that the respondent acted reasonably in treating this as sufficient reason for dismissing the claimant.

4.	The tribunal therefore decided to dismiss the claimant’s claims in their entirety for reasons given in full orally at the Hearing.

Chairman:

Date and place of hearing:     12 April 2011 Belfast.

Date decision recorded in register and issued to parties: