Miss H Lancey v Sea View Hotel Swansea Limited — 2020

The tribunal rejected the respondent's case that Miss Lancey resigned. It found that during a telephone conversation on 11 October 2019, KB used words that amounted to an unambiguous dismissal, and that those words were understood by the claimant as a summary dismissal without notice. The judge preferred the claimant's evidence, noted that KB did not give evidence, and found the CCTV and the holiday schedule material of limited assistance on the resignation issue.

The central dispute concerned holiday entitlement. The tribunal found that the claimant had been given holiday schedules and an email response indicating 20 paid holidays a year, with no clear explanation that there was also an additional Christmas shutdown period. It accepted that the claimant genuinely believed she and her colleagues were being denied the statutory entitlement to 28 days' paid holiday, and found it likely that she pursued the issue with management and with information from the Government website.

On reason for dismissal, the tribunal found that KB acted out of frustration with the claimant's persistence in asserting holiday rights. It held that the principal reason for dismissal was that she refused to comply with a requirement to work to only 20 days' leave in a year, which would have been less than the statutory entitlement under the Working Time Regulations. On that basis the dismissal was automatically unfair under s.101A ERA 1996, and the tribunal said that, in any event, the dismissal would also have been unfair under ordinary s.98 ERA 1996 because there was no fair reason and no fair procedure.

The tribunal rejected the claimant's alternative case that she was dismissed because KB wanted to give her job to DK, and it also rejected the suggestion that her tax complaints were a reason for dismissal. It recorded that remedy issues had not been dealt with at the liability hearing and that a separate remedy hearing would be listed.