Mr G. Appleford v House & Co Property Limited — 2022

Mr G. Appleford brought a claim against House & Co Property Limited for unauthorised deduction from wages, said to arise from a failure to pay him in lieu of accrued but untaken annual leave on termination of employment. The hearing took place on 1 April 2022 at Bristol by VHS before Employment Judge S Matthews, with the claimant not attending and the respondent represented by its director, Peter House.

The tribunal recorded that the claimant had been sent joining instructions by email the day before the hearing and that the clerk telephoned him twice on the afternoon of the hearing, but there was no response. The tribunal waited until 14.30 before starting. It had no information about the reason for the claimant's absence.

In deciding how to proceed, the tribunal took account of the dispute about whether holiday had been taken during the relevant period and the absence of any written submissions or evidence from the claimant in response to the respondent's assertions. Applying the overriding objective and rule 47 of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013, the tribunal decided that it was in the interests of justice to dismiss the claim. The judgment therefore dismissed the unauthorised deduction from wages claim without any monetary award.