LTRS Estates Ltd (t/a Orwells) v Hamilton (Practice and Procedure : Disposal of appeal including remission)

This appeal against a case management decision of Employment Judge Salter sitting at Reading of 19 November 2012 highlights the importance of the parties being clear before they leave the Appeal Tribunal as to precisely what is the scope of any remission which has been ordered especially where judgment is given extempore and where there is any realistic scope for misunderstanding.

The Claimant employee was employed as a restaurant manager by the Respondent employer from May 2010 at a restaurant in Henley.� He signed a written contract setting out detailed terms and incorporating an employee handbook on 28 December 2010, some seven months later.� The contract provided that he would work a 48 hour week, usually spread over five days, though there was some contemplation that he might work longer hours if needed.

The handbook set out detailed provisions entitling an employee to time off in lieu, in particular where bank holidays fell on the usual day off which, being a restaurant, was a Monday.� The notice period provided for by the signed contract was three months in writing.

In March 2011 the Claimant gave notice.� Letters followed in which he asserted that he had worked more than five days a week, essentially working an additional half day each week, and he wished to be reimbursed for that.� He sought to be compensated for overtime which he had worked, for notice pay which he thought was due and to be paid a share of the gratuities for the weeks of at least his notice period.� The matter was summed up in the ET1 at paragraph 6.1 in these terms:

�I want my three months notice, overtime for working conservatively 80 hours a week, time owed for off days work and 43 weeks of half days owed as per agreed.� All I want is what is owed and fair.� I gave a great deal to the business and I am being made to feel that I did nothing.� I am paid for my time, it is only fair it is to be recognised.�