Member F Paton Tribunal Member A Grant William Cunningham v Tilbury Douglas Construction Ltd — 2022

At the outset, the first claimant's combined complaint for notice pay and holiday pay was withdrawn after he said he had been paid additional monies, so no award was made on that issue. The tribunal then dealt with three unfair dismissal claims arising from a redundancy exercise in the respondent's construction business.

For the first claimant, the tribunal held that the unfair dismissal claim was presented outside the three-month time limit, extended by ACAS Early Conciliation, and that it was reasonably practicable for him to have presented it in time. It found he knew of the time limit, had attended Citizens' Advice, was not wholly occupied by post-dismissal correspondence, and did not take reasonable steps to obtain assistance with his claim form. The tribunal also said that, even if the claim had been in time, it would have failed on the merits because DS was retained only after additional work arose while DS was on holiday and in quarantine, and the first claimant said he did not want to return because he had secured other work.

The second and third claimants' unfair dismissal claims were dismissed. The tribunal accepted that there was a redundancy situation and that the respondent used objective selection criteria in a process run by RK, SB and CS with HR support while line managers were unavailable on furlough. For the second claimant, the tribunal found it was reasonable for CS to score him using a recent appraisal and that the respondent was not obliged to check archives in greater detail for one employee when that would have to be done for all staff; length of service was excluded from the criteria and he declined the scoring appeal. For the third claimant, the tribunal found the selection pool properly included JM, the scoring on qualifications, current work performance and suitability for available work was within the range of reasonable responses, and there were no overt signs of unfairness or bias. No compensation or other monetary award was made.