Case 3220729/2020 · Employment Tribunal
Trevor Martin v Whitnell Contracts Ltd — 2021
- Case reference
- 3220729/2020
- Decision date
- 5 July 2021
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Housego Representation
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Trevor Martin
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningTrevor Martin brought a holiday pay claim against Whitnell Contracts Ltd. The hearing was listed by telephone on 2 July 2021 at East London Hearing Centre. When the case was called at 2:00pm the claimant was absent. The judge adjourned briefly, telephoned Mr Martin at 2:20pm, and was told, "To be honest, I forgot all about it. I’m in a contracts meeting. Do I have to be there?" The judge told him the hearing would proceed and would send a judgment, but the call ended and a further call at 2:25pm was unanswered.
Applying Rule 47 on non-attendance, the tribunal found there was no excuse for the claimant's absence and struck out the claim. The reasons record that the judge considered the available information about the absence, including the telephone call with the claimant, and referred to Dimitriu v Testerworld Ltd on the point that the tribunal is not required to remind parties of hearings if they fail to attend.
The tribunal added that the claim would have been struck out in any event as out of time. The claimant said the effective date of termination was 28 August 2020, so the last date for bringing the claim was 27 November 2020, extended to 30 November 2020 by a three-day Acas early conciliation period running from 21 to 23 September 2020. The claim was filed on 19 December 2020, and the claimant gave no reason why it was not practicable to present the claim in time.
Claims and outcomes
1 finding recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Holiday pay | The tribunal struck out the holiday pay claim under Rule 47 because the claimant did not attend the telephone hearing and had simply forgotten about it. The judge also noted that, in any event, the claim would have been struck out as out of time. | Struck out | — | — |
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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