Employment Tribunal

RubyRue

Quick question, what happens if the company that is being claimed against doesn't respond. We are currently at the stage where the claim has been submitted to the ET and we have a hearing date. The company only have a few days left to respond to the claim, what happens if they don't?

Thanks

DVardysShadow

It causes them more problems than it causes you in terms of the case. Procedurally they may try and claim they did not receive any notification and the dog ate their homework to spin out the grief and adjourn or even appeal. Just sit it out, because if you go chasing them, they will feel rewarded for the tactic

wynnvegas

Hi Ruby,

In much the same way as any court case, any respondent / defender failing to turn up to court without notifying the court will ordinarily automatically lose. That being said, in my experience of (normally defending) tribunals and having the other side not turn up, the judge will often give the respondent / defender one last chance over the following 7-10 days to respond with a reason for their non-appearance. As DVardysShadow said, don't worry about it and certainly don't let any cheap tricks put you off your claim.

Best of luck.

Billy

RubyRue

Thanks for the replies. I've just found out that the company has applied for and been granted a two week extension to submit the response although they haven't given a reason why. I would have thought if they wanted an extension they would have to say why they needed it??

RubyRue

sorry I have another question, on further investigation, the respondant sent the extension request to the ET on the 13 August but didn't send a copy to us. The letter apparently didn't have a reason just that they wanted an extension. It has been granted and I presume because OH didn't object to it, but we didn't know about it to object to it. Can we object to it now or is it too late?

RubyRue

Ah well the saga continues...

The company has made a offer through ACAS for less than a third that what OH has asked for.

Now here's the strange thing, we got their response through today... and they've admitted everything, they have even wrote in their response that they had already pre-decided to make OH redundant before his consultation meeting, that they announced to the rest of the company that he was leaving before he had his consultation.. everything. The only thing they have said is that they cannot confirm nor deny that the person hearing the appeal meeting said it was only an off the record chat as they cannot contact him. The fact he still actually works for them as a contractor and is based in the office surprises me that they could not contact him.

So I'm guessing that they have admitted it may bode well for us if it goes to the hearing, although obviously you can never tell until the actual day.

floss2

RubyRue wrote: »

Ah well the saga continues...

The company has made a offer through ACAS for less than a third that what OH has asked for....

Go back to them with a figure between 33% & 50% higher than he would be happy with.....

You are now in the bartering stage and you really need to quickly work out what OH is happy to settle on (if you don't already know that) - it is unlikely he will be offered the figure he has asked for.

jazzyman01

Sorry to come in a bit late here, but how many people were made redundant?

I remember a case where there was a failure to agree and the staff redundant were automatically given 90 days salary (and no, not 100 or more redundant) because of the failure.

In addition I assume that your OH has put in a claim because of any shortfall/lack of salary since the redundancy occured?

RubyRue

There were originally three including OH made redundant, however they realised they still needed one of them so she was reinstated.

Yeh that was part of his claim, he's worked out a figure he is happy with if it gets offered.

The company also keeps suggesting OH do consultancy work doing the same work he was made redundant doing!

jazzyman01

What a mess! If they want him to do the same job as a consultant, where is the redundancy?

Were the three doing the same job? If so, how did they select the person that was reinstated?

By admitting everything they would probably hope that an ET would look on in sympathy.

Have they said that even if they had followed the fair process he would still have been the person redundant?

Sorry to throw so many questions, but it should help you prepare you for the tribunal and any possible settlement.