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Administrator unfairly dismissed after boss died
Page 12
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A WALSALL administrator who ran a haulage firm on her own for seven weeks without pay after her boss was found dead by his 12-year-old son has won a claim for unfair dismissal.
Stephanie Lawn told Birmingham Employment Tribunal how 49-year-old Michael Wathall, who was managing director of ML Transport in Cannock, died suddenly from a heart attack at his Walsall home last July.
"Wathall's son went to kiss him shortly before going to school and discovered he was lying on the bedroom floor dead," she added. The boy had been living with his father since Wathall and his wife Lee divorced six months before."
Lawn was awarded £3,731 by the Tribunal for unfair dismissal, unpaid wages and holiday pay.
She said Wathall had been a successful haulier; the firm delivered everything from pallets to envelopes in the UK and abroad. "Wathall died only hours after driving back from Spain following a delivery," Lawn reported. "I loved my job and carried on running the business from my home after the funeral, dealing with orders and making arrangements for the drivers.
"I wrote to Wathall's ex-wife to try to find out what was happening about the business and my future, but didn't receive a reply.
"After running the business for seven weeks and not hearing any thing I presumed I'd lost my job."
Tribunal chairman Charles Saunby said the business could not have carried on after Wathall's death, and his ex-wife's failure to respond meant Lawn had been made redundant.
He was satisfied that she had been unfairly dismissed through redundancy and said her award included a50% loading because no proper disciplinary and dismissal procedures had been carried out.