High Table Ltd v Horst
The place where an employee was employed, for the purposes of the definition of redundancy, is to be decided on the facts of where the employee actually worked, not by a wide mobility clause.
Facts
Mrs Horst and other waitresses were employed by a catering company, and worked at the premises of one particular client in the City of London for several years. Their contracts contained a mobility clause allowing the company to require them to work at other locations. The client reduced its requirements, and the waitresses were dismissed. They argued that they were not redundant, because the company could have moved them to other clients under the mobility clause.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal held that they were redundant. Peter Gibson LJ said that the place where an employee was employed is a question of fact, to be decided by reference to the employee's fixed or changing place or places of work, and the contractual terms are relevant only if the employee has been moved around in practice. If an employee has worked in only one place, it would be unreal to treat the place of employment as extending to anywhere the employer could have required her to work. The waitresses had always worked at the client's premises, where the need for their work had diminished, so they were redundant.
Related cases on redundancy and transfer of undertakings
- Botzen v Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij BV Case 186/83, [1985] ECR 519
- Celtec Ltd v Astley [2006] UKHL 29
- Cheesman v R Brewer Contracts Ltd [2001] IRLR 144
- ISS Facility Services NV v Govaerts Case C-344/18, EU:C:2020:239
- Litster v Forth Dry Dock & Engineering Co Ltd [1990] 1 AC 546
- Metropolitan Resources Ltd v Churchill Dulwich Ltd [2009] ICR 1380
- Murray v Foyle Meats Ltd [1999] UKHL 30, [2000] 1 AC 51
- Safeway Stores plc v Burrell [1997] ICR 523
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