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United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Hannigan v A B Stratos Ltd [1993] UKEAT 367_92_1102 (11 February 1993) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/1993/367_92_1102.html Cite as: [1993] UKEAT 367_92_1102 |
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At the Tribunal
Before
HIS HONOUR JUDGE B HARGROVE OBE QC
MR D O GLADWIN CBE
MR K HACK
Transcript of Proceedings
JUDGMENT
Revised
APPEARANCES
For the Appellant MR J C STEVENS
(Solicitor)
Messrs Stevens
25 High Street
Haverhill
Suffolk
CB9 8AD
For the Respondents MR P L OAKLEY
(Representative)
JUDGE HARGROVE: This case raises a short and not entirely easy jurisdictional issue. The Originating Application was dated 31 October 1991 and was received by the Central Office on 1 November 1991. The Respondents entered an appearance on 14 November and claimed that the employment ended on 15 July. Accordingly the Respondents' claim was that the application was out of time.
On 8 July the Respondents informed the employee that his employment was to be terminated and that the date of that termination was 15 July and that paragraph is perhaps of crucial importance here. It begins as:
"As per the terms and conditions of your Contract of Employment" [We regard that phrase as important] we hereby give you one week's notice that your employment with AB Stratos Ltd is terminated as of 5.00pm Monday 15th July, 1991."
There was then a letter from the employee dated 10 July, and again I only take one passage from it:
"I have also been advised to appeal on the grounds of wrongful dismissal as I received insufficient notice".
There was an oversight by the Respondents here and to rectify that a letter of 10 July was written by Stratos and the relevant paragraph reads as follows:-
"As agreed, due to our oversight regarding your notice period, you will be reimbursed for the remaining three weeks salary which will be paid to yourself via the normal bank credit transfer system on next weeks payroll".
There is an entry, which I do not think helps the matter very much further, upon a pay slip which mentions payment in lieu of notice.
The real difficulty which arises is this. Whether reading those two letters together the employee would realise that he was being, so to speak, wrongfully dismissed on 15 July, or whether he would have considered and an intelligent and reasonable individual would have considered, that the date of termination was the date of his period of notice namely 5 August. It is of course vital in this case to elucidate that point.
We have been referred to Adams v GKN Sankey Ltd [1980] IRLR 416. That was a case where twelve weeks notice was given but the employee was not required to go to work. That is a typical case of gardening leave. The Court held there that the date of dismissal therefore was at the end of that period of notice. We have also looked at the case of Robert Cort & Son Ltd v Charman [1981] ICR 816 and one can summarise that by saying that where there has been summary dismissal, the date of summary dismissal is the date on which the Contract ends. I note that in the Adams case a comment was made by Mr Justice Slynn, as he then was, indicating that ordinary clear language can avoid these problems. Unfortunately Mr Justice Slynn, not having the gift of perfect foresight, could not have foreseen that this complex issue could have arisen from honest men doing their best to produce the right result and resulting in something which in our view falls half-way between the two cases which have been cited.
We have looked with care at the situation and we have reached the conclusion that what the letter of 8 July intended to convey was that acting in accordance with the terms and conditions of a Contract of Employment a proper period of notice was being given. That, under the mistaken impression, was given as 15 July. The letter of 10 July does not in our view bear the interpretation given by the Industrial Tribunal namely that he was being wrongfully dismissed on 15 July but was receiving three weeks' pay in lieu. In our view what was the proper interpretation of the letter of 8 July combined with that of 10 July was that a full period of notice was to be given. At the end of that full period of notice that would be the date of termination.
We have therefore concluded that in a difficult case the Tribunal reached a wrong conclusion on the interpretation of the documents in spite of the fact that they have turned their mind very properly to all the cases. Our view therefore is that the date of termination was 5 August and that will mean that the Tribunal has jurisdiction to hear this case. We make no comment at all of course upon the merit of the case with which we are not concerned. This matter will go back to the same Tribunal for continuation of hearing.
