in person The v Respondent — 2023

The claimant, a blind installer employed from 19 May 2014 and transferred to the respondent under TUPE in January 2020, brought claims including unfair dismissal, breach of contract for notice, holiday pay and bonus arrears, while the respondent brought a counterclaim for losses said to arise from work on the Hayes and Hutchings jobs. Before the hearing the claimant confirmed that his outstanding holiday pay and bonuses had been paid, and those claims were withdrawn and dismissed by consent. This reserved judgment determined the termination issue, the notice-pay claim and the counterclaim; it did not record any monetary award.

The tribunal found that the 21 February 2022 meeting concerned concerns about speeding in the respondent's van and wider concerns about recent work standards and trust. It accepted that Mr English raised options including the claimant leaving that day with 7 weeks' wages plus "a bit on top". On 22 February 2022, after the claimant said he wanted to accept the leaving option and go self-employed, the tribunal held that the respondent's letter purporting to accept the claimant's resignation objectively amounted to a dismissal. It rejected the case that the employment ended by resignation or mutual consent.

On the breach of contract for notice claim, the tribunal distinguished between different kinds of private work. It found that work for Ms Snoxell, the Rainbirds, Totally Polished and Ms Nutting was outside the respondent's family-and-friends policy because the people were friends or relatives of friends, or the blinds were not ordered through the respondent, but those matters alone were not repudiatory. By contrast, the tribunal found that work for Ms Tyler, the Rainbirds' 21 July 2021 installation while the claimant was isolating with covid, and the 15 February 2022 Wessex Blinds promotional post together went to the root of the contract and justified dismissal without notice. It also found that by 9 January 2022 the claimant had set up a Wessex Blinds Facebook page, and that the business was being promoted on social media by 15 February 2022, but it was not satisfied that he was operating a business before his employment ended.

The respondent's counterclaim for damages over the Hayes and Hutchings jobs failed. The tribunal was not satisfied that the claimant had made deliberate or negligent errors or caused the losses claimed. On Hayes, the window frames were incorrectly ordered and there was no evidence that the claimant was responsible for that error. On Hutchings, the tribunal did not accept that the claimant's actions caused the loss, noting Mr English's evidence that there had been a number of errors by a number of people on that job.