The Trust had sent to the respondent a letter terminating her employment. The parties disputed when the notice took effect.
Held: Proudman J held that ‘the contents of the letter had to be communicated to the employee’.
Arden LJ held that the letter had to be ‘received’; where it has been delivered to the party’s address, there is a rebuttable presumption that it has been received; but that presumption had been rebutted by the judge’s finding that Mrs Haywood did not receive the letter until 27 April – there was no need for her to have read the letter but she had to have received it.
Lewison LJ dissented: ‘notice is validly given under the contract when a letter containing the notice actually arrives at the correct destination, whether the recipient is there to open it or not’
Arden DBE, Lewison LJJ, Proudman DBE J
[2017] EWCA Civ 153, [2018] 1 WLR 2073, [2018] ICR 882, [2018] 4 All ER 467, [2018] WLR(D) 265, [2018] IRLR 644
Bailii, WLRD
England and Wales
Cited by:
Appeal from – Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust v Haywood SC 25-Apr-2018
Notice of dismissal begins when received by worker
The court was asked: ‘If an employee is dismissed on written notice posted to his home address, when does the notice period begin to run? Is it when the letter would have been delivered in the ordinary course of post? Or when it was in fact . .
These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 19 July 2021; Ref: scu.581074
