finding out that your job is redundant by mistake

lala9

Before christmas I was sent a document by mistake that revealed myself and my colleague would be loosing our jobs in the new year .

My question is do I have a available case for negligence on the the companys part? Can I pursue this.

Management would not give any comment at the time when quizzed but about a week latet a colleague of mine approached a senior manager who told him they hadn't made a decision but be prepared for bad news this year. But didnt talk to us . This document was pretty damming and I have since found out that the decision was made months ago , hence the document . I also had to provide all my job processes in this doc and forward on to some consultant .

Obviously this caused alot of upset over the christmas period and we have now been told we are being made redundant.

There is more to this story but for now wanted to know if there was a case to answer to . Please help

Denning.

No.

I hope you took the extra time to look for other jobs?

lala9

Ok , are you sure about that? Ive read about similar incidents which have gone to tribunal .

Kei

Hi Lala,

Google 'Williams v Compair maxam'. It is an employment tribunal which has shaped case law regarding redundancy.

Point 1 - The employer will seek to give as much warning as possible of impending redundancies so as to enable the union and employees who may be affected to take early steps to inform themselves of the relevant facts, consider possible alternative solutions and, if necessary, find alternative employment in the undertaking or elsewhere.

If you do get to ET, there are 3 or 4 other points that the ET will also look into such as fair selection for redundancy etc.

Have you been dismissed by reason of redundancy or been given notice yet? If yes, appeal the decision. If no, raise a grievance.

Other tip is to check out the ACAS website as they have guidelines for how a redundancy process should be carried out.

Hope that is useful

marybelle01

Kei wrote: »

Hi Lala,

Google 'Williams v Compair maxam'. It is an employment tribunal which has shaped case law regarding redundancy.

Point 1 - The employer will seek to give as much warning as possible of impending redundancies so as to enable the union and employees who may be affected to take early steps to inform themselves of the relevant facts, consider possible alternative solutions and, if necessary, find alternative employment in the undertaking or elsewhere.

If you do get to ET, there are 3 or 4 other points that the ET will also look into such as fair selection for redundancy etc.

Have you been dismissed by reason of redundancy or been given notice yet? If yes, appeal the decision. If no, raise a grievance.

Other tip is to check out the ACAS website as they have guidelines for how a redundancy process should be carried out.

Hope that is useful

Williams v Compare Maxam was superseded by the ERA 1996 and subsequent amendments which introduced a statutory consultation period in redundancy. Williams is therefore no longer relevant - the law is the measure. There is no requirement in law to tell people that there are impending redundancies at some point in the future, only to adhere to the legal framework for consultation.


Employment tribunals do not "look into" other points - they "look into" the case you present and nothing more. They are not appeal panels, they are courts of law and rule on the cases presented to them. They do not make it up as they go along.

Kei

williams v compair maxam is still relevant. There is statue law and there is case law. The statute may have been updated and a statutory consultation period introduced, but this does not make the preceding case law irrelevant. The case law supplements the statue.

Employment tribunals look to other case law for comparisons. When they write a judgement they will often refer to other case law.

Williams v Compair maxam went all the way through to the court of appeal and as such there are 5 'guidelines' that a tribunal may refer to.

marybelle01

Kei wrote: »

williams v compair maxam is still relevant. There is statue law and there is case law. The statute may have been updated and a statutory consultation period introduced, but this does not make the preceding case law irrelevant. The case law supplements the statue.

Employment tribunals look to other case law for comparisons. When they write a judgement they will often refer to other case law.

Williams v Compair maxam went all the way through to the court of appeal and as such there are 5 'guidelines' that a tribunal may refer to.

I think you will find that statute law supersedes case law made earlier - as it does in this case. In 1982 there were no statutory redundancy procedures and no law covering redundancy processes. Employers simply decided there would be redundancies and did pretty much whatever they wanted. Employment tribunals are very expensive commodities these days, and the OP has no case here. It'd be a shame to spend money to find that out. Employers plan redundancies in advance - of course they do. But they are not required to tell people when they are doing that, or make an announcement when they come to a decision about what they wish to do. That is why there is a consultation period - to enable them to present their intentions to the workers affected and listen to what the workers, or the unions, have to say.


And yes, tribunals look to case law. But they look to case law to support the case that the parties put - they do not "look into" things, they make judgements based on the cases put.

Kei

To assess whether a redundancy dismissal is fair or unfair, they may look for guidance from previous employment tribunals. I have sight of a judgement that was made last year which specifically refers to Williams v Compair maxam in the closing submissions to determine whether it was a fair or an unfair dismissal. The tribunal looked into all 5 points of the W v CM case, even though not all of these 5 points were brought by the claimants. This is how I know that this case is still relevant and that all 5 points of the case are looked into.

If the OP has evidence that the decision was made months ago and the company failed to tell them, this could strengthen their case for UD.

sensibleadvice

Kei wrote: »

williams v compair maxam is still relevant. There is statue law and there is case law. The statute may have been updated and a statutory consultation period introduced, but this does not make the preceding case law irrelevant. The case law supplements the statue.

Employment tribunals look to other case law for comparisons. When they write a judgement they will often refer to other case law.

Williams v Compair maxam went all the way through to the court of appeal and as such there are 5 'guidelines' that a tribunal may refer to.

I read OP as claiming for negligence in circulating the document rather than how any redundancy selection process may be applied which may well be in order.

lala9

sensibleadvice wrote: »

I read OP as claiming for negligence in circulating the document rather than how any redundancy selection process may be applied which may well be in order.

Yep this what I was getting at , would this be viable

Annisele

lala9 wrote: »

Yep this what I was getting at , would this be viable

I can't see how.

To succeed with a negligence claim, you'd have to prove that your employer breached a duty owed to you by circulating the document, and that its breach of duty somehow caused harm to you. I may be missing something very obvious, but I don't see how you suffered harm - if anything, you got more notice (and therefore more time to look for another job) than you would otherwise have done.