Readman v Devon Primary Care Trust [2011] UKEAT
Published on: 20/01/2012
Issues Covered:
Redundancy
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Background
The question for the Court was whether the Employment Tribunal erred in law in concluding that the Appellant had unreasonably refused an offer of alternative employment for her own reasons, when it had correctly concluded that the offer was an offer of suitable employment which a reasonable employee could have accepted?The claimant was a Community Modern Matron who was facing the risk of redundancy. She was offered two posts in community nursing at a lower salary and status. She tried one for the statutory trial period but did not like it and resigned. However, she declined a post which involved no loss of status or financial loss as it was at the same band on the scale as her current post. It was a post in a hospital and she preferred to remain within community nursing, where she had been working since 1985. It was the circumstances of her refusal of that offer which formed the heart of the case. In particular, the Respondent refused to make a redundancy payment, relying on s.141 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which is a section which applies where an offer is made to an employee before the end of his employment, either to renew his contract of employment or to reengage him under a new contract of employment. Subsection (2) provides that, where subsection (3) of that section is satisfied, the employee is not entitled to a redundancy payment if he unreasonably refuses the offer. Subsection (3) is satisfied where, as is relevant for this case:108“(b) those provisions of the contract as renewed, or of the new contract, would differ from the corresponding provisions of the previous contract but the offer constitutes an offer of suitable employment in relation to the employee.Thus the Employment Tribunal had to consider two issues: first, whether the offer of employment was an offer of suitable employment; and, second, whether the employee had unreasonably refused that offer.The Court held that the offer of employment was an offer of suitable employment.The Court held that desire not to work in a hospital setting, in the particular circumstances of this Appellant, did provide her with a sound and justifiable reason for turning the offer down. Accordingly, the appeal succeeded and the court substituted a finding that the Appellant was entitled to receive a redundancy payment in place of the decision of the Tribunal which dismissed her claim for a redundancy payment.http://bit.ly/ymhG8G
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The information in this article is provided as part of Legal Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article.
This article is correct at 20/01/2012
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