The claimants appealed against rejection of their claims for redundancy. It had been part of their employment contract that they were collected and transported to work. After other employees were dismissed for redundancy, the transport service became uneconomic, and the employer withdrew it. The claimants were then unable to attend work, and were replaced by other more local workers.
Held: The appeals failed.
Tye men were not redundant: ‘there is no evidence whatever of any actual or expected reduction in the requirements of the business for employees to carry out work of the particular kind carried out by the appellants once the twelve had been dismissed. The accident that three of the twelve came from Port Isaac increased the cost per man of employing the remaining seven Port Isaac men and rendered their further employment uneconomic. But even if the cost per man had remained the same and the employers had come to the conclusion that Port Isaac labour was too expensive, there would, subject to the effect of Dutton’s case1, have been no redundancy situation so long as there remained the same work for seven other less expensive men to do. There is no evidence that the loss of the benefit of free transport reduced the men’s remuneration to an unrealistic level.’
The Court considered its own powers to disregard its earlier decisions: ‘In our judgment, the interests of justice will best be served if this court retains a measure of flexibility. Whilst expressly disavowing any pretensions to the status of the House of Lords, we can think of no better way of stating the extent to which this court will treat itself as being bound by its own decisions than respectfully to adopt and adapt the words of the declaration delivered by Lord Gardiner, LC . . Accordingly, we wish to say that this court regards the use of precedent as an indispensable foundation upon which to decide what is the law and its application to individual cases. It provides at least some degree of certainty upon which individuals can rely in the conduct of their affairs, as well as a basis for orderly development of legal rules in the field of industrial relations. The court nevertheless recognises that too rigid adherence to precedent may lead to injustice in a particular case and also unduly restrict the proper development of industrial law. The court therefore, whilst treating its own former decisions as normally binding, will consider itself free to depart from them when it appears right to do so. In this connection the court will bear in mind the danger of disturbing retrospectively decisions which have formed the general basis of industrial relations agreements and practices.’
Sir John Donaldson
[1972] EW Misc 2, 13 KIR 308, [1973] 1 All ER 218, [1972] IRLR 124, (1973) 8 ITR 77, [1973] ICR 50, [1972] 1 WLR 1634,
Bailii
Redundancy Payments Act 1965
Cited by:
Appeal from – Chapman v Goonvean and Rostowrack China Clay Co Ltd CA 16-Apr-1973
Several of the company’s employees had been given transport to work as part of their contract. After redundancies, the remaining number of employees so entitled made the service uneconomic, and the company withdrew it. The seven appellants had to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment
Updated: 05 January 2022; Ref: scu.554193