Mrs Margaret Ford Representative - Mr Ahmed - Counsel v Lillian Rose Walker t/a Sue and Sally’s Card Shop Representative - Mr A Walker – Husband of Lillian Rose Walker — 2020

Mrs Margaret Ford had worked for the respondent shop for about 20 years as a sales assistant, working two days a week for £120 per week. The tribunal found it was common ground that she had not been issued with written particulars of employment and had not been paid holiday pay. She told Mr Walker on 18 March 2020 that she would need to self-isolate before a planned medical procedure, and the tribunal accepted that he assured her her job would be waiting when she recovered. After the first COVID-19 lockdown and the shop’s closure, there was no further communication about her return to work, and the tribunal accepted her evidence about a 1 May 2020 call in which Mrs Walker said their daughter Sue was dealing with the return-to-work situation.

When non-essential retail reopened on 15 June 2020, the claimant had still not been contacted about returning for her usual Thursday and Friday shifts. She did not attend on 18 June 2020 and instead prepared letters referring to dismissal, notice pay and redundancy pay. On 19 June 2020 she went to the shop and met Sue, who told her there were no hours for her; the tribunal found that, viewed objectively, those words amounted to a dismissal. The respondent did not reply to the claimant’s letters or otherwise seek to reassure her or dispute her understanding that her employment had ended.

The tribunal held that the dismissal was unfair. No fair reason was shown, and although the downturn in work may have been a redundancy situation, there was no evidence of consultation, selection, or other usual redundancy steps. The tribunal relied on section 95 and section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, and on the objective approach discussed in Avuru and Sandle, in concluding that the claimant had been dismissed on 19 June 2020.

On remedy, the tribunal awarded a basic award of £3,600 based on the claimant’s age, length of service and weekly pay, and a compensatory award of £5,340 for 45.5 weeks’ loss of earnings to the hearing date, less £120 earned in a new job she started in April 2021. It also awarded a £480 uplift under section 38 of the Employment Act 2002 because no written particulars had ever been issued. Holiday pay of £672 was awarded separately, producing a total award of £10,092.