Employment Judge HorneMr D Jones (instructed by counsel) for claimantDate 1 December 2022
JUDGMENT
BY CONSENT The respondent must pay the claimant the sum of £3,000.00 by 29 December 2022. Employment Judge Horne Date: 1 December 20229 December 2022 Note –(1) This judgment disposes of all complaints in this claim. No particular sum is attributed to any particular complaint.(2) The parties may be required to pay tax and national insurance on the sum payable under this judgment. They have agreed between themselves sufficient information about the breakdown of this sum so as to enable them to make the necessary declarations to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.(3) The tribunal was satisfied that the claimant did not receive any relevant welfare benefits. Accordingly, regulations 7 and 8 of the Employment Protection (Recoupment of Benefits) Regulations 1996 do not apply. NOTICE THE EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (INTEREST) ORDER 1990 ARTICLE 12 Case number: 2400487/2022 Name of case: Mr R Elson v New Platt Motors Limited Interest is payable when an Employment Tribunal makes an award or determination requiring one party to proceedings to pay a sum of money to another party, apart from sums representing costs or expenses. No interest is payable if the sum is paid in full within 14 days after the date the Tribunal sent the written record of the decision to the parties. The date the Tribunal sent the written record of the decision to the parties is called the relevant decision day. Interest starts to accrue from the day immediately after the relevant decision day. That is called the calculation day. The rate of interest payable is the rate specified in section 17 of the Judgments Act 1838 on the relevant decision day. This is known as the stipulated rate of interest. The Secretary of the Tribunal is required to give you notice of the relevant decision day, the calculation day, and the stipulated rate of interest in your case. They are as follows: the relevant decision day in this case is: 9 December 2022 the calculation day in this case is: 10 December 2022 the stipulated rate of interest is: 8% per annum. Mr S Artingstall For the Employment Tribunal Office GUIDANCE NOTE[1]There is more information about Tribunal judgments here, which you should read with this guidance note: www.gov.uk/government/publications/employment-tribunal-hearingsjudgment-guide-t426 If you do not have access to the internet, you can ask for a paper copy by telephoning the Tribunal office dealing with the claim.[2]The payment of interest on Employment Tribunal awards is governed by The Employment Tribunals (Interest) Order 1990. Interest is payable on Employment Tribunal awards if they remain wholly or partly unpaid more than 14 days after the relevant decision day. Sums in the award that represent costs or expenses are excluded. Interest starts to accrue from the day immediately after the relevant decision day, which is called the calculation day.[3]The date of the relevant decision day in your case is set out in the Notice. If the judgment is paid in full by that date, no interest will be payable. If the judgment is not paid in full by that date, interest will start to accrue from the next day.[4]Requesting written reasons after you have received a written judgment does not change the date of the relevant decision day.[5]Interest will be calculated as simple interest accruing from day to day on any part of the sum of money awarded by the Tribunal that remains unpaid.[6]If the person paying the Tribunal award is required to pay part of it to a public authority by way of tax or National Insurance, no interest is payable on that part.[7]If the Secretary of State has claimed any part of the sum awarded by the Tribunal in a recoupment notice, no interest is payable on that part.[8]If the sum awarded is varied, either because the Tribunal reconsiders its own judgment, or following an appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal or a higher court, interest will still be payable from the calculation day but it will be payable on the new sum not the sum originally awarded.[9]The online information explains how Employment Tribunal awards are enforced. The interest element of an award is enforced in the same way.
REASONS
Relevant law
[1]Rule 70 of the Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure 2013 provides the tribunal with a general power to reconsider any judgment “where it is necessary in the interests of justice to do so”. The making of reconsideration applications is governed by rule 71.[2]Rule 72(1) states that an employment judge must consider any application made under rule 71. The rule continues: “If the Judge considers that there is no reasonable prospect of the original decision being varied or revoked … the application shall be refused…”[3]Rule 64 is headed “Consent orders or judgments” and provides, relevantly: “If the parties agree…orally at a hearing upon the terms of any … judgment a Tribunal may, if it thinks fit, make such [a] judgment…”[4]It may be necessary to reconsider a consent judgment in the interests of justice where it appears that a party did not give valid consent to that judgment: Larkfield of Chepstow Ltd v. Milne [1988] ICR 1. Whether or not consent was valid is governed by the principles of the law of contract. (See, for example, Obonyo v. Wandsworth Primary Care Trust UKEAT/0237/07.) Under those principles, a party may be entitled in certain circumstances to avoid an agreement that would be otherwise legally binding. One of those circumstances may be economic duress: Hennessy v. Craigmyle & Co Ltd [1986] ICR 461.[5]Where a party is not legally represented, it may be necessary for the tribunal to take care to establish that that party’s intentions are clear and that the party understands the significance of what they are doing: Drysdale v. Department of Transport [2014] EWCA Civ 1083. Procedural history[6]Judgment was sent to the parties on 9 December 2022, following a hearing before me on 1 December 2022. The respondent was represented by Mr Taylor, a mechanic, and the claimant was represented by counsel. At the hearing, the parties informed me that they consented to the judgment. I discussed the proposed order with Mr Taylor in ordinary language. He confirmed that he agreed to it.[7]By e-mail dated 23 December 2022, Mr Taylor informed the tribunal that he was “making an appeal against the judgment”. The “appeal” was on the ground that Mr Taylor was “pressured into consenting to what the claimant had requested”.[8]I treated Mr Taylor’s e-mail as an application for reconsideration of the judgment under rule 70 of the Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure 2013.[9]Before giving preliminary consideration to the application under rule 72(1), I caused a letter to be sent to the parties on 24 January 2023. The letter set out the procedural history and then asked the respondent for further detail of the grounds on which the respondent sought reconsideration. In particular, the letter required the respondent to do the following: “(a) state what pressure was put on Mr Taylor;(b) name the person who allegedly put that pressure on him;(c) if the pressure consisted of something said to Mr Taylor, state what was said.”[10]The deadline for providing that information was 7 February 2023.[11]The respondent has not provided that information.
Conclusions
[12]I have concluded that there is no reasonable prospect of the judgment being varied or revoked.[13]The fact that the judgment was by consent is not an insurmountable problem in itself. If the consent was not valid, neither is the judgment.[14]There may well be cases where one party puts so much pressure on the other party to settle their case that the pressurised party may be entitled to avoid the agreement on the ground of duress. The respondent’s problem here is that there is no evidence that this is one of those cases. The respondent has had an opportunity to provide further detail about the pressure that was put on Mr Taylor. That would have enabled the tribunal to know whether there was any prospect of the respondent successfully arguing that Mr Taylor’s consent was invalid. No such detail has been provided.[15]The respondent is not saying that Mr Taylor did not understand what he was doing. There is no suggestion that I misunderstood Mr Taylor when he said he agreed to the consent judgment.[16]In those circumstances the reconsideration application must be refused.