Bell v Wharfe Valley Sectional Buildings Ltd [1992] UKEAT 484_90_2109

EAT
Bell v Wharfe Valley Sectional Buildings Ltd
[1992] UKEAT 484_90_2109 · 1992-09-21
MR JUSTICE WOOD (PRESIDENT): This is an appeal by Mr Bell from a Decision of an Industrial Tribunal sitting at Leeds under the Chairmanship of Mr Scott, who on Tuesday 19 June 1990 reached a majority decision that Mr Bell had resigned and had not proved that he had been dismissed. He was making an application for redundancy payment and before that could be so he would have to prove that he was dismissed; if therefore there was no dismissal he failed.Mr Bell had been employed by Wharfe Valley Sectional Buildings Ltd for some 10 years from 1980 to 1990. He was on piece work and in January 1990 orders were short. The Company were having problems and there was a three day week in operation. It was at the end of the third week of short working, namely Friday, 9th February 1990, that a conversation occurred which, as the Tribunal found, led to the ending of Mr Bell's employment. They give their version of the facts in this way:
"He was called into Mr Armitage's office [Mr Armitage is the Managing Director] and asked whether he had been working for someone else on the 2 days a week when he had not worked for Mr Armitage's firm. Mr Bell acknowledged that this was true and Mr Armitage asked if Mr Bell was thus leaving. When Mr Bell said he was leaving he [Mr Armitage] then was asked how much notice was being given. Mr Bell said: `A week'. Mr Armitage said: `You might as well go today' and gave him his wages."
Those were the basic findings of fact. There was an issue as to whether at the end of that conversation Mr Armitage had said "Well I'm closing the firm down anyway". Or whether he said "I might as well close the firm down." It was the latter, namely Mr Armitage's version that was accepted by the Tribunal.After that Friday the 9th, during the next few days, Mr Armitage and his co-directors had a number of crisis meetings about the situation and decided to make all the other workers redundant; that took place the following Wednesday. Mr Bell, for his part, was given his P45 on Tuesday 13th, that is the day before, and subsequently made his application to the Tribunal. Those were the facts.On those facts a number of possible views were open to the Tribunal. They might have found that the employment ended on Friday the 9th by the resignation; or they might have found that the Contract was to end on the 16th and that Mr Bell was to receive wages, if he offered himself for work during that week; or they might have found that there was a termination during the currency of that notice by some act of the employer. They looked at the issue of the P45, they found it had no legal significance and that this was really, I am using my own word, an administrative process.The finding of the Tribunal in paragraph 6 reads as follows:
"The tribunal by a majority concluded that this was a resignation, no doubt in the heat of the moment by the applicant, but without any such provocation or intervention by Mr Armitage that could convert the resignation into a legal dismissal. They were influenced by Mr Armitage's consistent account of crisis meetings of his directors in the days between 9 and 14 February when redundancy notices were served on other employees and they also accepted his evidence, in preference to that of the applicant, about his closing remark in the critical interview between the two men on 9 February. In other words the majority accept that Mr Armitage had not on that day decided that redundancy notices were to be served generally. The majority also do not attach particular legal significance to Mr Armitage allowing his employee to go home on the day when he had accepted his resignation. That seemed to be in accordance with a fairly common practice. Nor do the majority attach particular significance to the way in which the P45 was given to Mr Bell a day or two later."
That sets out the views of the majority. The minority view, the single Member, felt that the Contract was effectively terminated when having been intended to run for a week Mr Armitage gave his employee his P45 on Tuesday 13th, therefore, that follows from that view that this was a termination by the employer during the currency of a notice. The minority view points out that the Contract of the employer was still running on the 13th and whilst intending to resign he found himself dismissed, in other words, the Contract notice was running and there was a dismissal by the employer by the sending of the P45.The view that we take on those facts is that a number of different interpretations were open to the Industrial Tribunal, but although a possible reading was, that by implication the Contract of Employment had been terminated by the resignation of Mr Bell on the Friday that may have been what they intended, nevertheless, it is not clearly stated and therefore Mr Bell is entitled to say that the finding is not sufficiently clear for him to be able to understand exactly what they found.It follows, therefore, that we feel that the fair course here is to remit this matter to be re-heard before an industrial tribunal, so the appeal is allowed and the matter is remitted for a re-hearing.