PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – Appellate jurisdiction/reasons/Burns-Barke
The Claimant was retained by the Respondent in 2015 to work as a web developer and then to work on an associated membership database. The number of days’ work was to be as agreed. The daily rate was pounds 150. The relationship ended early in 2017. The Claimant claimed that since 2016 he had put in 158.5 days’ work for which he had not been paid, and was owed wages of pounds 23,775. The Respondent’s case was that only 23.5 days’ work had been agreed in that period, and that the Claimant was only owed pounds 3525. The Employment Tribunal (‘ET’) accepted the Respondent’s case and awarded pounds 3525. The Claimant appealed.
The overarching ground of appeal was that the Tribunal’s Decision was not compliant with Meek v City of Birmingham District Council [1987] IRLR 250, in particular because there was no clear finding as to what was agreed about the work for which the Claimant would or would not be paid, and how, in the relevant period. He also argued that the ET wrongly rejected his case as to the number of days that he had actually worked in the relevant period. The Respondent’s case was that, reading the Decision as a whole, the ET had clearly found that, as from a meeting on 27 April 2016, it was agreed that the Claimant had to complete the project, but had no right to any further payment; and the ET was entitled to take the view that it did about how many days he had actually worked after that, though that was strictly irrelevant.
Held: Whilst recognising the difficulties it faced, in light of the nature of the evidence available to it, and its overall task, the ET had not made sufficiently reasoned or clear findings, as to (a) the agreement or understanding, following a meeting on 27 April 2016, about what, if any, further payment the Claimant would receive or how it would be calculated thereafter; (b) the significance of the fact that, on the Respondent’s own case, accepted by the ET, payment for some further days’ work, at the daily rate, had, in any event, been agreed after that meeting; and (c) its reasons for rejecting the Claimant’s case as to the number of days he had actually worked, given the evidence that he put before the ET
Citations:
[2019] UKEAT 0127 – 18 – 0901
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 31 May 2022; Ref: scu.635154