Mr N K Harrington v Evergreen Timber Frames Limited — 2019

Mr Harrington brought a breach of contract claim in the Employment Tribunal under article 4 of the Employment Tribunals Extension of Jurisdiction (England and Wales) Order 1994. He said there had been an agreement at the end of his employment that included transfer of a Nissan vehicle, transfer of a company computer, and a bonus of one month’s net pay.

The tribunal found that discussions had taken place in October 2017 when Evergreen Timber Frames Limited was considering closure, but those discussions could not support a claim based on the later redundancy process because the closure option did not happen. On the evidence, the tribunal preferred Mr Topham’s account on the alleged computer transfer and the alleged bonus agreement, and rejected Mr Harrington’s case that those terms had been confirmed at a later meeting in May 2018. Those parts of the claim therefore failed.

The tribunal accepted that the letter handed to Mr Harrington on 3 July 2018, in the context of his redundancy dismissal, stated that the company would like to gift him the Nissan Qashqai registered LS14 BYO. It rejected the respondent’s argument that this was only a discretionary gift or that Mr Harrington had rejected the offer by appealing. Instead, the tribunal found that Mr Harrington accepted the letter of 3 July and that there was offer and acceptance of the Nissan transfer.

On quantum, the tribunal accepted Mr Harrington’s evidence that he had researched the vehicle’s value online and that there was no contrary evidence from the respondent. It therefore awarded him £8,400 in damages for the Nissan claim, and the judgment records that the breach of contract claim succeeded in part.