Mrs Susan Perolls v AKS Forcort Limited and 2 others — 2022

Mrs Susan Perolls had worked at All Saints Service Station since 16 June 2003. The tribunal found that the garage was subject to a service provision change when Tankerford Limited contracted first with AKS Forcort Limited in April 2020 and then with JMN Retail Limited. After refurbishment and closure in May 2020, the claimant was left unpaid for a period and tried to establish whether she still had a job.

The tribunal found that on 19 June 2020, when she met the incoming manager, she was told he would use his own staff and there was no place for her. It held that Mr Sithamparanathan's later refusal to answer her call, together with the surrounding events, amounted to dismissal by conduct on that date. Because the only reason advanced for not taking her on was that JMN Retail Limited refused to employ her, the dismissal was held to be automatically unfair under regulation 7(1) TUPE 2006. No economic, technical or organisational reason was suggested, and liability passed to JMN Retail Limited when the relevant transfer took effect on 1 July 2020.

Remedy was limited to compensation. The tribunal accepted that the claimant had made reasonable efforts to mitigate her loss until 8 March 2021, when her Jobseeker's Allowance ended, and it did not reduce the award for early pension drawdown. It rejected an ACAS uplift and the claimed loss of statutory and long-notice rights. The agreed and amended figures were £1,694.20 for unlawful deduction from wages, £4,691.64 for breach of contract or notice pay, £1,009.82 for holiday pay, a basic award of £12,034.98, and a compensatory award of £9,811.46, making a total of £29,242.10. For recoupment purposes, the protected period ran from 19 June 2020 to 18 March 2021 and the amount awarded in that period was £9,811.46.