Humphrey & Ors v Gatwick Handling Ltd

An employment contract must be construed from its language and relevant factual setting. Subjective intentions cannot alter the meaning of signed contractual documents. Where a written contract specifies the collective agreements to which it is subject, an agreement outside that specification will not ordinarily be incorporated by implication. Employees must be told in clear written terms what constitutes paid working time, particularly where an employer relies on an unpaid meal break to reduce paid hours. A tribunal’s construction of an agreement is a question of law and may be corrected on appeal.

Approximately 250 baggage handlers worked 12-hour shifts on a four-days-on, four-days-off roster. Their written contracts generally provided for 40 hours per week and two meal breaks during each shift. The employees claimed overtime for the second meal break, relying on the contractual hours provisions and disputing the effect of informal minutes from a 1971 meeting and a 1972 agreement involving the Transport and General Workers Union.

The Employment Tribunal dismissed the claims. The Employment Appeal Tribunal allowed the employees’ appeal. Gatwick Handling Ltd appealed, raising issues concerning construction, incorporation of collective agreements, adoption of the 1971 arrangement, and conflict between any incorporated term and the written contracts.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. Peter Gibson LJ delivered the leading judgment; Robert Walker LJ and Keene LJ agreed. The order of the Employment Appeal Tribunal was enforced, with costs.
2. The minutes did not mean that the second meal break on the 12-hour roster was unpaid. They recognised that the additional hours would be given to management in exchange for maintaining the existing system of paid meal breaks. The later reference to non-payment when working an eight-hour system could not be rewritten to impose non-payment on the 12-hour system. Any ambiguity would in any event have been resolved against the employer.
3. The employees’ contracts provided for 40 hours’ employment per week, or 42 hours under one form of contract, and two meal breaks during a 12-hour shift. The contracts contained no wording distinguishing the breaks or excluding one from paid employment. The meal-break provision reinforced, rather than displaced, the conclusion that both breaks were paid.
4. The 1971 minutes were not an agreement between Gatwick Handling Ltd and the union within the contractual incorporation clauses. Nor had the evidence established a later adoption agreement between those parties. A general expectation within a bargaining unit could not override express contractual limits on incorporation.
5. Even if the alleged agreement had been incorporated, it would have conflicted with the written contracts. The employer could not rely on an important reduction in paid hours without clear written terms. Tribunals should be extremely cautious before finding that employees are bound by an agreement of which they knew nothing.
6. The Tribunal had confused findings of primary fact, inferences from facts, and legal conclusions about the meaning of an agreement. The construction of the minutes and the sufficiency of the evidence for incorporation involved errors of law.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): [2001] EWCA Civ 1573. Appeal from the Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed with costs.
• Employment Appeal Tribunal: Employees’ appeal allowed on 9 October 2000.
• Employment Tribunal: Claims for overtime dismissed in a decision promulgated on 25 May 1999.