Letter from Employment Tribunals

maddoc666

Hi everyone, needing a little help and advice if possible, I know you are all the right people to ask.

I recently had to put a claim into the Employment Tribunals as my former employer kept fobbing me off with excuses regarding late wages. Owed roughly short of £2000.

Anyway, long story short, i received a letter from them this morning with this header.

"Default Judgement - Tribunal Not Satisfied It Has Jurisdiction"

It then goes on to say the following,

"Employment Judge (Name) has noted no acceptable response to your claim has been received."

"However, the judge is not satisfied that the tribunal has jurisdiction to consider that part of your claim which raises the issue of failure to make a redundancy payment and unfair dismissal."

Can anyone tell me in normal speak what this means please?

It does go on to say a hearing will be arranged due the jurisdiction issue and will be issued in due course.

To be honest, this has me worried that i have no chance of getting what i am owed from my previous employer, which is rather unfair considering i have all the emails and texts with the excuses re wages etc.

I hope some of you can help me get my head around this and thanks in advance.

Pricivius

There are a few reasons why the Tribunal might question whether it has jurisdiction to hear the claim - for example, have you brought the claim within the time limit? Have you definitely been dismissed? Was is definitely a redundancy? It's impossible for us to guess what th jurisdiction issue is without more detail - the time point is the most likely, but I would have expected the letter to explain the reason...

zzzLazyDaisy

When did you start working for the company?

When did your employment end?


When did you submit the tribunal claim?


I am assuming from what you say, that you made claims for unlawful deduction from wages, unfair dismissal, and a redundancy payment?


If you can answer the above questions, it may become clearer what the tribunal's concerns are, and then we may be able to advise you.

maddoc666

It's ok, i gave them a phone call later in the day and got a breakdown of the what the letter meant.

Basically, as i was only with the 7months, it means i am not in the time frame for a redundancy and unfair dismissal claim. As you have to be in employment with a company for 2 years before they allow this.

It doesn't effect my claim regarding owed wages and holiday pay thank god.

Thanks for the help and advice anyway, appreciated.

zzzLazyDaisy

Ah, I wondered if that was the case.

I suggest that you write to the tribunal and inform them that you wish to formally withdraw your claims for unfair dismissal and redundancy payment, and to proceed only with the issue of unpaid wages and holiday pay.

That way there will be no need to attend a preliminary hearing on jurisdiction.