Jason Elliott was called to the Bar of Northern Ireland in 2013 and is the Associate Head of School of Law at Ulster University. As a practising barrister, he has developed a largely civil practice representing individuals, companies and public bodies in litigation. This covers a wide range of areas including personal injuries, wills and employment law. In terms of employment law, he has represented both applicants and respondents in the Industrial Tribunal. At Ulster University, Jason lectures extensively on the civil areas of practise such as Equity and Trusts and delivers employment law lectures for both undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Background:
The claimant was employed as the respondent’s Chief Revenue Officer from January 2021 until his employment was terminated in May 2022. The claimant had a salary of £75,000 plus commission depending upon licences. The respondent’s business in this respect related to the use of specialist technology in the food, retail and hospitality sectors relating to preparation, packaging and labelling.
On 4th April 2022, the claimant was informed by the Director of the Respondent that he would have to leave the company. He was given a month’s notice. During the notice period the claimant continued to come to work and continued to chase outstanding expenses and payments (relating to holiday pay, sick pay and expenses). At no time did the respondent dispute those expenses (and it should be noted they did not attend the hearing before the Tribunal).
It was found that the claimant did mitigate his loss by obtaining a new job in July 2022 at a much higher salary.
Outcome:
The Tribunal found that the claimant had been automatically unfairly dismissed as a result of the statutory procedure not being followed. The Tribunal found that as a result of the failure to follow the procedures at all then Article 17 of the Employment (NI) Order 2003 should be invoked and allows for an uplift of 50% to the compensation.
The basic award given was £2,376.00 and the compensatory award was £8,334.42 but with the 50% uplift was brought to £12,501.63. When this was put together with 4 weeks’ pay for failure to provide written particulars, outstanding salary, outstanding holiday pay, commission pay and expenses there was a total award of £32,842.09.
Practical Guidance for Employers:
This case, yet again, demonstrates the importance of ensuring that the statutory procedures are followed when taking the decision to take disciplinary action or dismiss. In this case, there was no real procedure adopted at all and that led to the dismissal being automatically unfair. As a result, there was a 50% uplift in the compensatory award given to the claimant. Considering that the claimant was only in employment for just over a year, the overall award is quite a hefty sum for the respondent to pay.
NI Tribunal decisions are available on the OITFET website:
http://www.employmenttribunalsni.co.uk/
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