Mrs Rano Karra v Cube Manufacturing Limited — 2022

The tribunal accepted that the claimant, Mrs Rano Karra, had continuously been employed by Cube Manufacturing Limited from 16.07.2016 and rejected the respondent's case that her employment had ended in 2018 and restarted on a fresh contract. It found the later documents dated 02.07.2018 were not a new contract or agreed variation, accepted the claimant's evidence that she had been pressurised into signing them without understanding their content, and treated the respondent's evidence on those events as unreliable.

The holiday pay claim was conceded by the respondent at the start of the hearing. The tribunal ordered payment of £1,166.25 for untaken, accrued and carried over holiday pay for the employment ending 16.09.2019. The claim for notice pay was also made out, but no separate award was made because the tribunal had already found in the claimant's favour on unfair dismissal and sought to avoid double recovery.

On unfair dismissal, the tribunal found the respondent failed to show a potentially fair reason for dismissal such as redundancy or some other substantial reason, and failed to show it acted reasonably in all the circumstances. It accepted there was no proper consultation, no meaningful discussion of alternatives, no evidence of a fair selection process or alternative employment search, and no right of appeal. The tribunal also recorded the complete failure to follow the ACAS Code in both dismissal and grievance procedures.

The remedy for unfair dismissal comprised a basic award of £1,096.88, a compensatory award of £7,464.00 for eight months' net loss of pay, a 25% uplift of £2,227.72 for the ACAS Code failure, and £350 for loss of statutory rights. The tribunal did not award the claimed expenses, did not award notice pay separately, and stated that the prescribed element for recoupment was £9,691.72 net, with an excess of £2,613.13.