advice please

[littleempire]

Hi everyone, well OK this may get a bit complicated but I will try and keep it brief and as clear as poss.

So last week myself and my parter had out ET, I won my case and the employer was slated!!!

however the employer managed to squirm out of the partners judgment.

One the the reasons I was sacked is because after my partner made a qualifying protected disclosure about my boss I was suspended while a fake investigation was run, this lasted about 6 months while he attempted to find anything he could to get rid of us for, eventually as nothing could be found legitimately he made changes to a policy that meant my partner had been overpaid by the company, unfortunately for him the tribunal saw through this with evidence we presented.

 

Basically her fixed term contract was due to end in April 2010 as stated in her terms and conditions of employment. The employer knew this but the person she had made a protected disclosure about wrote to the council (who paid her wages) and said clearly that the company did not need more funds for her post as they would not be keeping her (this was within days to her fixed term contract ending) he was also caught out my asking a solicitors by email on the day her contract ending "how best do we make xxxxx redundant and remove her right to appeal ect" basically this and lots of other things proved how mistreated she was. Now the employer claims it kept my partner employed without her knowledge or consent and without providing her with any paperwork such as payslips ect, they claim the reason that she heard nothing and was not aware that her contract had been made permanent was because she was still on suspension (however this suspension if real would have now lasted 7 months!!!!

 

Well they now claimed that because she had worked for the company on 4 fixed term contracts that she had become a permanent employee under the 2002 regs. (even though later in the case they did admit that they had only found out about these regs when looking for a way to remove her appeal rights to being made redundant.

 

So during the case the judge asked if we would allow them to challenge our claim and throw it out. The judge focused heavily on this point and kept asking us to stop and think about what this means over and over, but as we were not represented we now think that maybe we missed our chance then "as the judge highlighted in his decision" to ask that in the alternative we claim that the later decision was unfair dismissal because they only kept her employed for 4 months after the end of her fixed term while they made 100% deductions from her wage without her knowledge and as mentioned previously without issuing payslips or communicating with her in anyway so she would know she was an employee (by the way, she also returned all her works equipment to the employer on the day her fixed term end and they gave her back her belongings from the office, but did not say anything to her!!!)

 

So what we are trying to find out now is: how do we get back the wages they withheld for those 4 months as they should not have made this alleged 100% deductions, or could we complete an new ET1 and ask that the tribunal allow it (even though its way out of time) because we only found this out last week, and our claim was based on her being made redundant in april 2010 not july 2010.

 

Or any other sugestions???? thanks

[Emmzzi]

to be clear: you have had an ET on your partners dismissal, and lost it?

[littleempire]

well we had two claims heard together, i won mine but while it was on the defendants ask if it can be struck out and the judged asked if we were ok with that considering the content of the 2002 regs on fixed terms employees becoming perminent after 4 years, so yes i guess you could said we lost by not fighting it.

the reality is that she should have finished in april when her fixed term ended as the employer did not even know about the 2002 regs until after her fixed term ended and they were trying to find a way of ensuing she could not appeal to the redundancy

[Emmzzi]

you can appeal but as it was your own course of action that lost you the case I would be amazed if it went anywhere.

 

grounds for appeal here

 

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/ResolvingWorkplaceDisputes/Employmenttribunals/DG_180552

 

I don't think you meet them. you may even get costs awarded against you.