International woman of mystery….
by Philip
This case is worth reading because it contains a rather bizarre set of facts. The Claimant alleged that she was employed by the Respondent, a Mrs Petia Chickerova. The nub of the Claimant’s case was that Mrs Petia Chickerova owed her about £800.00 for cleaning work. The delightfully named Mrs Petia Chickerova did not respond to the ET1 when she received it because she said that the claim could not be against her as firstly she had never heard of the Claimant, the equally wonderfully named, Mrs O Holovachuk, and secondly the Tribunal letter had left the a off the end of her name.
The matter went to review. Mrs Chickerova kept up her denial of ever having met Mrs Holovachuk and therefore denied owing her any unpaid wages. Mrs Holovachuk produced her notebook which had Mrs Chickerova’s handwriting in. Mrs Chickerova agreed it was her handwriting but denied having met or employed Mrs O Holovachuk. Quite how her handwriting got into Mrs O Holovachuk’s notebook we will never know! Mysterious, isn’t it, unless of course there could be a totally fantastic and incredible explanation like, let’s see, (cough, drifting into the world of speculation and loony conspiracy theory) Mrs O Holovachuk had been Mrs Chickerova’s employee and she had written in Mrs O Holovachuk’s book telling her what to clean and iron on a particular day. That couldn’t be the case could it?
Needless to say Mrs Chickerova appealed the decision in what the EAT say were quite “angry” terms. Despite there being a technical point about the statutory grievance procedure for the EAT to consider, this story had a happy ending. Mrs H won the appeal. Perhaps Mrs Chickerova should watch a Few good men and learn, Jack Nicholson style, how to handle the truth.
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