MR SUKHBINDER JAGPAL v Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust — 2025

The claimant brought one complaint of unlawful deduction from wages arising from deductions made after his sickness absence from 31 January 2023. The tribunal found that his contract and the Agenda for Change terms gave him, in his first year of service, one month’s full pay and two months’ half pay, calculated by reference to the 12 months immediately before the first day of sickness. Because he had already had more than one month’s sickness absence in October and November 2022, his entitlement to full pay had expired when the later absence began.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant’s MED3 form referred to “Stress at work” and that his line manager had ticked a “work related” box on ESR, but found this was a mistake and not an assessment that Injury Allowance applied. Injury Allowance required an application, supporting documents, an investigation and a decision, and none of those steps had happened. The tribunal rejected the claimant’s suggestion that there was a conspiracy to push him out, and accepted the respondent’s evidence that it wanted him to return to work.

The tribunal found that the claimant had been paid full pay in January and February 2023 when he was not contractually entitled to it, and that the March 2023 deduction of £880.95 was made to recoup part of that overpayment. It held that the deduction fell within section 14 ERA 1996 as reimbursement of an overpayment of wages, and in any event that clause 15 of the contract authorised deductions for salary overpayment under section 13 ERA 1996. The complaint was therefore unfounded and was dismissed.