In Person For the First v Mr M Arman T/a Shahzalal Takeaway — 2018

The claimant brought claims arising from his work as a takeaway delivery driver for the respondent. The tribunal found that employment started on 1 August 2017 and ended on 7 February 2018, when the business ceased trading. The respondent entered no response and did not appear at the hearing. The claimant had suggested in the claim form that the dismissal was automatically unfair because he had asserted a statutory right, but he did not pursue that point at the hearing.

The unfair dismissal claim was dismissed because the claimant did not have two years' continuous service and none of the statutory exemptions applied. The tribunal said it had no jurisdiction to deal with that claim. It accepted the claimant's evidence that he worked until the premises shut down without warning and that he could not contact or locate the owner afterwards.

The tribunal upheld the wrongful dismissal claim and awarded one week's notice pay of £289.42 net. It also upheld the unlawful deduction from wages claim, accepting the claimant's evidence that he should have been paid £7,814.34 net over 27 weeks but had only received £750, leaving £7,064.34 due. Holiday pay was awarded at £618.45 net under the Working Time Regulations 1998.

On the contractual payment issue, the tribunal accepted that £2 per delivery had been agreed but said there was no clear evidence of the number of deliveries. Doing the best it could with the material available, it estimated 40 deliveries per week, producing an award of £1,890 net. The tribunal also awarded £1,157.68 under section 38 of the Employment Act 2002 for failure to provide written particulars, describing that figure as four weeks' net pay. On reconsideration, the tribunal confirmed the section 38 award and corrected the delivery-payment element as part of the final total of £11,019.89.