The respondent is a haulage company and the appellant was employed as a lorry driver for a number of years before being made redundant. The respondent said that it had been required to make redundancies because it had lost a big contract. It said the claimant had been moved from an articulated lorry to a rigid truck for a week as an alternative job, with the same terms, except he was not allowed to drive the rigid truck home. He then left voluntarily, requested redundancy, and took up another post for another firm.

The claimant had a different story and said he did not volunteer for redundancy. He didn't know someone with less service than he had been kept on.

The problem for the employer, as is so often the case, is that they did not bring forward evidence, either in writing or via witnesses, that corroborated their side of the argument. The claimant argued the job he took upon leaving paid around one third of the one he had left. The EAT found it unlikely someone would volunteer for redundancy and take up a similar job at a third of the wages. In the absence of any convincing evidence from the employer, they awarded €20k compensation for unfair dismissal.