Did Not Attend For the v Mr A Passman — 2020

Mr Stacey brought a monetary claim against Stay Dry Roofing (South West) Limited for accrued but unpaid holiday pay. The tribunal recorded that the agreed gross holiday entitlement at termination was £900.00, equivalent to £654.82 net after tax and National Insurance. The respondent relied on clause 7 of the contract, signed by the claimant on 22 December 2014, which authorised deductions from wages for outstanding loans and for damage or repairs caused by the employee’s negligence.

The tribunal found that the claimant had used the company van late at night and in the early hours of the morning despite being told to stop, had resigned on 29 October 2019, and had left the van abandoned with the tracker wire cut. The respondent had incurred £97.00 for an engineer’s assessment and £195.00 to repair the tracker damage, and it had also issued clothing and tools totalling £476.03, which the tribunal described as effectively advanced as a loan. A letter of 30 October 2019 stated that those sums would be deducted from the claimant’s final pay.

Applying section 13 ERA 1996, the tribunal held that the deductions were not unlawful because the claimant had previously signified in writing his agreement or consent to them. It found the sums deducted from the net holiday pay fell within the contractual deduction clause and therefore extinguished the net amount otherwise due. The claim for accrued but unpaid holiday pay was dismissed.

The judgment also noted a dispute about paternity pay, but stated that those matters were outside the scope of the proceedings and were not addressed.