ESTOPPEL

Fraser v HLMAD Ltd: [2006] EWCA Civ 738

CA: Mummery and Moore-Bick LJJ: 15 June 2006

The claimant brought complaints of unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal against the defendant in the employment tribunal, stating in his originating application that he reserved the right to bring High Court proceedings for damages for wrongful dismissal in excess of £25,000, the maximum sum the tribunal was statutorily entitled to award. He also began proceedings in the High Court for damages for wrongful dismissal to recover the excess of any award made by the tribunal. The employment tribunal subsequently found that the claimant had been wrongfully dismissed, determining the amount of damages at over £80,000, but limited its award to the capped amount. The defendant's application to strike out the High Court action, made on the grounds of res judicata and an abuse of the court's process, was granted by the master.

The claimant appealed.

The Court of Appeal held:
Where a cause of action was the subject of a final judgment it merged into that judgment and ceased to exist, and a wrongful dismissal claim could not be split into two separate actions, one for damages up to £25,000 and another for the excess over that sum. Therefore, when the claimant's complaint of wrongful dismissal was the subject of a final judgment in the employment tribunal his cause of action for wrongful dismissal merged and was extinguished, notwithstanding the express reservation in his originating application of the right to bring High Court proceedings for the excess, and, since his High Court action for the excess was not a separate cause of action, the claimant no longer had any cause of action which he could pursue in the High Court.

The appeal was dismissed.

Appearances: Simon Cheetham (Stone Rowe Brewer, Twickenham) for the claimant; Raoul Downey (DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary UK LLP, Sheffield) for the defendant employer.