THE INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNALS

CASE REF:	1228/07

CLAIMANT:			Tereza Podlesakova

RESPONDENT:		R A Mitchell T/A Dental World Ltd

DECISION
The unanimous decision of the tribunal is that the claimant’s claim for unpaid wages is not well-founded and is hereby dismissed.

Constitution of Tribunal:
Chairman:		Ms A Crooke
Members:		Mr Henry
			Mr Laughlin

Appearances:
The claimant was represented by Ms L Palmer.
The respondent was represented by Ms L McVeigh, Finance Manager.

Sources of evidence

1.	The tribunal heard evidence from the claimant and also from Ms Linda McVeigh.

2.	There was little to no documentation available for the tribunal as most of it had been destroyed in a fire at the respondent’s Crumlin Road premises on 17 April 2007.  

The claim and the defence

3.	The claimant claimed the sum of £6,750 in respect of unpaid wages, although this figure was later changed in the hearing to £3,500 and the claim for the balance unrefunded of professional indemnity insurance that was taken out by the claimant as a condition of her contract in the sum of £900.

4.	The respondent denied that this sum was due and alleged that the claimant had received all sums due to her.  

Findings of fact

5.	The claimant is a Dentist from the Czech Republic.  

6.	She came to work in one of the branches of the respondent’s dental practice in Northern Ireland.  

7.	While she did not sign an agreement with the respondent because one of the pages was missing, this was still the agreement upon which she commenced work for the respondent.  

8.	Although the claimant had been told that she needed to come to Northern Ireland to start work on 1 November 2006, she actually did not start work for the respondent until 13 November 2006.  This was because she needed to complete formalities with the local Health Board and in particular its officer in charge of registration of Dentists, Mr Maxwell.

9.	The claimant alleged that she treated 15 to 20 patients per day and sometimes 40, although some of these cancelled.  There was no objective evidence to back up the assertion by the claimant as all the dental records for that time, including the dental appointment books for that branch of the practice, had been stored in the Crumlin Road Head Office and then destroyed by a serious fire on 17 April 2007.  The claimant herself did not keep any records.

10.	The claimant was offered a loan of £1,500 to assist her during the first three months in Northern Ireland which would have been repayable at the end of the fourth month of work.  Basically, the respondent estimated that it took up to three months for a sufficient flow of work to be generated and hence also as a consequence wages for the Dentist.  This loan was to be payable at the end of the first month of work.

11.	The claimant started on 13 November 2006 and left work on 1 December 2006 to return to the Czech Republic on personal family business.  In or around 12 December 2006 she decided that she would not return to Belfast unless she was paid and recorded this in an e-mail to Ms McVeigh.  The claimant said that she had started to distrust the respondent and that she did not have money for the flight.  

12.	In or around 8 January 2007, the respondent wrote to the claimant confirming that it would pay her outstanding money and confirming that Linda McVeigh had received an e-mail on 12 December 2006 saying that the claimant did not intend to return without wages being paid.  In that letter it was also confirmed that the claimant had started work on 13 November 2006 at lunch time and her last day worked was Friday 1 December 2006 with one day off, being Friday 24 November 2006.  This made a total of 13.5 days worked.  Even if the subsidy had been paid, the respondent argued that it would have been repayable anyway to them at the end of the fourth month of work.  In essence, the respondent’s case was that to qualify for the subsidy, the claimant needed to have worked for a month and as she had not done so, the question of payment to her did not arise.  However, the tribunal have noted that the claimant was paid a sum of £267.73 nett by the Central Services Agency in respect of amounts earned by her.  A schedule was provided to the tribunal which showed that payments were listed through from December 2006 to July 2007 and this is the reason why there was a delay in payment of this sum to the claimant.  Under the terms of the agreement entered into, the respondent would have been entitled to deduct laboratory fees from that sum and also take 50% off any remaining sum.  As the payable order was made payable directly to the claimant, the respondent was not able to do so. 

13.	The claimant was responsible for payment of her professional indemnity insurance and for her own general dental practice registration.  Accordingly, the tribunal does not consider that any question of repayment of these sums arises, as this is the basis upon which she accepted the job with the respondent and it was her own choice not to continue to work out her contract.  

14.	Under the terms of the agreement the claimant was required to provide three months notice of termination of her relationship with the respondent and she did so.

Conclusions

15.	The claimant was offered a position with the respondent on the basis of a subsidy of £1500 payable after her first month worked per month for three months until the fourth month of working with the respondent.  At this point, any subsidy paid would have been repaid to the respondent.  The claimant did not remain with the respondent long enough to draw down on the subsidy of £1500 and her claim for £3,500 in respect of unpaid wages is hereby dismissed as the claimant was not able to provide objective evidence of her entitlement to this sum.

Chairman:

Date and place of hearing:	27 March 2008, Belfast.

Date decision recorded in register and issued to parties: