Effective date of termination
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has recently handed down its decision in Wedgewood v Minstergate Hull Ltd [2010] UKEAT/0137/10/DA, allowing the claimant’s appeal in finding that he was not out of time in bringing his claim for unfair dismissal. The Appeal Tribunal found on the facts of the case that the Effective Date of Termination was not altered simply because the respondent had agreed that the claimant was not required to work his notice period.
At first instance, the Employment Tribunal judge had decided that the respondent’s letter of 28th November 2008 agreeing to absolve the claimant of his duty to work his notice period (effective as at the date of the letter), was sufficient to effect a variation of the EDT from the end of the notice period (1st December 2008) to the date of the letter, thereby rendering the claimant’s claim on 28th February 2008 to be out of time.
Whilst accepting that the EDT can be varied by agreement (Palfry v Transco [2004] IRLR 916), the Appeal Tribunal applied the case of Lees v Greaves [1974] 2 All ER 393, a case which confirms that the mere fact of the claimant not being required to work is insufficient to effect a variation of the EDT. The fact that the respondent had referred in its letter to the claimant of 28th November 2008, to the notice period ending on 1st December 2008, also assisted the Appeal Tribunal in coming to it’s decision that the EDT had not been varied.
