Mr. M. Duffy (C1) Ms S. Murphy (C2) v Mr. B & Mrs S. Jones in partnership as Shelbourne Hotel (R) HELD BY: CVP — 2021

C1 had been the General Manager and C2 the Assistant or Deputy Manager at the Shelbourne Hotel for 19 and 18 years. After Mr and Mrs Jones bought the hotel on 26 March 2019, they moved in, issued new contracts containing probation, deduction, break, lay-off and holiday clauses that the claimants did not accept, and then changed the practical roles so that C1 was largely confined to cooking and C2 to cleaning, with guest-facing and management functions taken over by the respondents.

The tribunal found that those changes were substantial, went to the root of the employment relationship, and were materially detrimental. It held that the conduct destroyed trust and confidence, that the claimants did not affirm the contracts, and that they resigned only after the grievance and appeal process had failed. On that basis both were constructively unfairly dismissed, and the dismissals were also automatically unfair because they were caused by the TUPE transfer.

On notice, the tribunal held that the respondents had breached the contracts by dismissing without notice, but it awarded no notice pay because the claimants resigned summarily and Regulation 4(10) TUPE prevented damages for notice not worked. Remedy was agreed: C1 received a basic award of £11,812.50 and a compensatory award of £4,780.77, and C2 received a basic award of £8,996.40 and a compensatory award of £3,886.40; each compensatory award included £350 for loss of statutory rights. The tribunal limited loss to three months' wages, found no blameworthy conduct by the claimants, noted that recoupment did not apply to C1 but did apply to C2, and treated the claimants as being at risk of a fair dismissal or voluntary departure within that period.