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	United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> PPASS Ltd (t/a International Property) v Proctor [1997] UKEAT 1163_97_2711 (27 November 1997) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/1997/1163_97_2711.html Cite as: [1997] UKEAT 1163_97_2711

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APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	MR S SHIELD Managing Director


 


JUDGE B HARGROVE QC: The Respondent claimed that she had had an unlawful deduction made from her wages in the sum of £471.81. The only contention between the parties was whether there had been a variation of the contract.

The employers engaged the Respondent as a sales executive concerned with telephone sales at a rate of £10,000 per annum together with a sales commission of 5% provided she reached monthly sales of £7,500. It appears she was not entitled to commission for the first month.

She was engaged on 30 September 1996. By 8 November she was told by the employers that she was not performing well enough and therefore, the employers could not afford to pay her at the original rate and that she could do one of two things. She could either leave the company or accept a variation whereby her salary dropped by £4,000 but her commission was increased by 10%.

It seemed that as soon as she was informed of the proposed variation she protested. She was told to think about it over the weekend. She returned to work saying that she had been given no choice but to accept, because she could not afford to terminate her work.

What the employer says today is, in fact, there was a dismissal at one point and then a re-engagement on a totally different contract. The Respondent continued to protest. Solicitors were instructed on her behalf, but nothing came of their endeavours on behalf of the Respondent.

The Industrial Tribunal found that there had been no consensual variation of the contract; that the original contract remained. That being so, the terms of the original contract applied and there was an unlawful deduction. Whether there was or was not agreement is a question of fact. Questions of fact are entirely matters for the Tribunal, they are not matters of law to be dealt with by this Tribunal.

It may well be that this Tribunal might, looking at the bare outline and without hearing the parties, have considered that a different conclusion might have been reached, but that is immaterial.

There is no reasonably arguable point of law involved in this appeal and the appeal is therefore dismissed.