Mr S Jones v Adept Facilities Group Ltd T/a Trojan Property Maintenance: 3326409/2019
JUDGMENT
Rule 21 of Schedule 1 to the Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2013[1]The respondent failed to present a response to the claim and judgment is entered in favour of the claimant as follows.[2]The claimant is owed unpaid wages and is awarded £3,274.48 in compensation. The respondent is ordered to pay this sum to the claimant.[3]The claimant is owed holiday pay and is awarded £904.02 in compensation. The respondent is ordered to pay this sum to the claimant.REASONS
[1]On 3 December 2019, following a period of early conciliation between 5 November 2019 and 28 November 2019, the claimant lodged a claim against the respondent for arrears of pay. This was described as being for money and overtime owed.[2]The response to this claim was due on 6 January 2020. On 3 January 2020 the respondent’s operations manager requested an extension of time for submitting its response, which was granted to 27 January 2020. No response was (or has ever been) submitted. On 1 March 2020 the tribunal wrote to the parties indicating that it was considering issuing a rule 21 judgment but required details of the amount of the claimant’s claim before doing so. On 2 March 2020 the respondent replied saying “we have been unable to provide a meaningful response to the claim as there are no specifics listed” and “once we have specifics of the amount being claimed we will provide our response”. On 5 March 2020 the claimant provided the tribunal (but not the respondent) with his calculations. A detailed breakdown of the figures was included, and on 25 March 2020 a rule 21 judgment in accordance with those calculations was signed by me, although for some reason this was only promulgated by the tribunal on 22 July 2020.[3]On receipt of this rule 21 judgment, the respondent wrote with an application which I take to be an application to reconsider the rule 21 judgment, as follows: “Further to your email received … today … we have been waiting for full details of what [the claimant] is claiming for as per my letter of 2 March 2020 … but we are now informed that judgment has been made without us being able to fully defend the case. We have not received any communication whatsoever since 2 March 2020 and so the judgment has come as a surprise, especially as our defence was outlined in a previous Page 1 of 2 Case Number: 3326409/2019 communication, albeit we weren’t fully aware of the details of what [the claimant] was claiming for.”[4]There is nothing on the tribunal file that could amount to a “defence … outlined in a previous communication” except for the letter of 2 March 2020, which gives no basis of any defence to the claim.[5]I have decided to refuse this application for reconsideration under rule 72(1) on the basis that there is no reasonable prospect of the original decision being carried or revoked. This is because the respondent has still not even at this stage provided any basis on which the claimant’s claim is opposed. If the respondent wished to defend the claim it ought to have submitted its defence within the extended time allowed for that. It would have been possible to submit a defence of some kind, or even a simple denial of the claim, without knowing the precise details of the amounts claimed. The respondent did not do that, and thereby ran the risk of the rule 21 judgment being issued. I may have been prepared to allow the reconsideration if the respondent had even at this stage set out a basis on which the claim was opposed, but it has not done so. We are now more than eight months after the claim was originally issued and the respondent has put forward no basis for saying that this money is not owed to the claimant. I refuse the application for reconsideration.