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.
The claimant had worked for the respondent since October 2009 until his dismissal on 15th June 2020. The claimant issued an ET1 claiming for unfair dismissal and unpaid holiday pay. The respondent initially engaged in the case, lodging an ET3 form as well as being represented for the case management preliminary hearings. However, the respondent did not attend or appear at the actual hearing. The Tribunal found that the respondent had been emailed by the Tribunal and that they were sufficiently on notice of the hearing date. Therefore, they allowed the hearing to go ahead in the absence of the respondent or any representatives of the respondent.
The claimant gave testimony which went unchallenged. He outlined the manner in which he was dismissed which the Tribunal stated was not in line with the statutory dismissal procedure outlined in the Employment (NI) Order 2003 in any respect. Accordingly, with the fact that this went unchallenged and that there was nothing in the paperwork submitted by the respondent to challenge this evidence it was held that the dismissal was unfair.
In terms of the award it came to a total of £11,410.00. This included a 50% uplift on the compensatory award due to the failure to follow the statutory procedure in the dismissal. In terms of the holiday pay claim this was withdrawn by the claimant prior to commencing the hearing.
Practical Lessons
This case is not ground-breaking in terms of the law that has been followed but is demonstrable of how not to conduct litigation. Merely allowing hearings to pass without any engagement is a recipe for disaster. It is likely that the respondents could have got a better outcome through an engagement with the process to try and find some resolution or to try and make some argument as to why the dismissal had been made. The silence from the respondent made it incredibly easy for the claimant to prove the few elements of unfair dismissal that had to be shown and to receive an award.
NI Tribunal decisions are available on the OITFET website:
http://www.employmenttribunalsni.co.uk/
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