Employment Tribunal appeal and extension

[salviablue]

Hi,

Is there a way to tell if an employment tribunal judgement has been made in default?

 

I took my ex-employer to the ET, and, long story short, got a judgement for unlawful deduction of wages success.

 

I was not requested to attend court, and heard nothing more on the subject for a while until I received the judgement in the post.

 

It just says "JUDGMENT, The claim for unlawful deduction of wages succeeds and the respondent is ordered to pay forthwith, the sum of £xxxx.xx to the claimant.

 

After the fourteen day of "interest free" deadline had, passed. I chased up the respondent for payment, who then claimed to be unaware of it.

 

He subsequently wrote to the judge asking for the judgement to be revoked so he may submit a defence, claiming his registered office had moved address since the beginning of the ET procedure and he did not receive the court papers (response pack etc.) as issued by the court.

The judges reply was essentially no, as the correct procedures had been followed in serving the documents.

 

However, the respondent has since informed me that he is applying for the judgement to be set aside.

 

Investigating through the likelihood the judgement will be setaside, it seems that not receiving the documents alone, is not sufficient reason, unless the judgement was made by default due to this. (he had not updated his registered office with the court nor companies house, and only moved address once the et process had begun)

 

A) what is the likelihood of the judgement being set aside?

B) How can one tell if the judgement has been made by default?

 

Cheers

Edited December 17, 2014 by salviablue
deleting daft question

[SabreSheep]

I would imagine that if he did not update the court and companys house at the point of transfer of premises then set aside on that point alone would be unlikely to survive

[becky2585]

A) unfortunately in my experience, it's very easy to have a default judgment set aside. Under the new ET rules, a respondent can apply after the 28 day time limit for an extension, which the judge has the power to retrospectively grant. The problem is that part of the "overriding objective" is to have both parties on an equal footing - and realistically I think the default judgment may well be set aside.

 

B) are you asking from your point of view? The ET Order serves as a default judgment.

[salviablue]

Not sure if this is in the correct section, please move if not.

 

I took my employer to ET after giving him chance after chance to pay my overdue holiday pay,

which he had promised to pay in writing.

 

 

After much toing and froing, stating that if I had to go to employment tribunal,

I would be pursuing for more than unpaid holiday, but for the other monies I perceived he owed me,

and after pathetic excuses, he still hadn't paid up after several months, so I got ACAS involved.

 

He still didn't pay up after agreeing with ACAS he would,

so I made an ET application for all the issues of my time employed by him, not just unpaid holiday pay.

 

After receiving the initial response re the ET application, he promptly paid some of my holiday pay.

 

after a long time of the ET asking me for more information (mainly due to my application to waive the fees),

they eventually sent me a judgement, in my favour,

requiring my ex employer to pay me just under £2k for unlawful deduction of wages.

 

However, after emailing my ex employer for the payment, he eventually got back to me stating he was unaware of the judgement.

I sent him the details.

Then a week later gave him a final opportunity to pay up before further legal action.

 

He then replied by stating that he is contesting/appealing the decision and to stop harassing him.

 

He is the type of person that leaves everything tio the very last minute, often going over deadlines,

then expects the deadlines to be extended for his bad organisation of time.

 

on the 5th of feb, I get notification from his solicitor that he is finally appealing the decision and asking for an extension

and for the case to go to hearing, pleading that the papers were not served properly.

 

 

He denies having received the papers, despite the judge having already stated that he considers the papers to have been properly served

as they were served upon his registered business address.

 

My question is,

 

 

what is the likelihood of the judgement being scrapped and an extension for the respondent to file a response be granted,

therefore the case then going to hearing, and can an extension or any kind of consideration be entered into

due to the fact that 42 days long passed since the respondent was considered to have received the judgement,

and even if one considers the date the respondent was aware of the judgement,

42 days have still long passed.

 

 

Judgement was passed on the 5th of november, I first contacted him for payment of the judgement on the 25th of november.

 

Is there anything I should be doing?

 

Also, I've just got the money together to proceed with enforcing judgement.

 

 

Should I pay the £60 and proceed, or should I await further contact from the court before proceeding,

just incase his request gets granted and my money then gets swallowed up?

 

I don't get why he is contesting tbh. The cost to him, acording to the website is £400 to appeal, £1500 if it goes to hearing?

 

In either case, I seriously doubt I will be charged to pay for his expenses, therefore, he is only saving himself around £100?

 

Why not just admit his fault and pay what he owes?

 

 

I didn't even request damages etc...just unpaid wages.