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Driver wins after boss' death
Page 22
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• A Leeds Industrial Tribunal has ruled that a driver who carried on driving the same vehicle, doing the same work, for the same company following the death of his employer was entitled to redudancy pay.
The Tribunal was told that the late Derek Sheard hired out ready-mixed concrete wagons with drivers to Pioneer Concrete and that driver Stephen Fisher had worked for Sheard from 1979 until 21July 1987, when Sheard had died.
Fisher said that on the day of Sheard's funeral Mrs Sheard had told him that she was giving him his wages up to the time of her husband's death and that in future his wages would be dealt with by Pioneer Concrete. In a telephone conversation with the bank, said Fisher, he was told that neither Mrs Sheard nor the bank would pay him any wages in the future, that he would carry on driving the same vehicle for Pioneer Concrete but that he would be paid by Pioneer Concrete as self-employed.
The Tribunal said that if Sheard's death did not terminate the contract of employment by operation of law — as it would have done but for the provisions of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 — then Fisher's contract of employment would have been continued with the personal representatives of the deceased. The Tribunal was satisfied that they used Mrs Sheard as their agent to pay Fisher on the occasion of Sheard's funeral, though that was somewhat incongrous, so if there had been a transfer of employment under the regulations, it was immediately repudiated by the bank.
It was his relationship as an employee that was in question. His contract of employment was terminated on the death of Sheard. If it was transferred for some short time to his personal representatives, they repudiated it, in effect telling Fisher that they had no need of him as an employee. It was made quite clear that they were not abiding by any contract of employment then subsisting between Fisher and Sheard.