Mrs L Senosi v Unique Yorkshire Catering Services — 2022

The claimant, Mrs L Senosi, brought a holiday pay claim against Unique Yorkshire Catering Services and stated in the ET1 that she was seeking £2,000. The respondent did not file an ET3 or take part in the proceedings. The hearing was listed for 28 April 2022 before Judge Sills at Leeds Employment Tribunal, and the claimant asked for a postponement the day before the hearing saying she could not attend because of her mental health.

The tribunal refused the postponement application. It noted that the claimant had previously failed to comply with directions requiring her to provide the respondent and the tribunal with a breakdown of what she said she was owed, how the sum had been calculated, and supporting documents, and that she had provided no medical evidence to support the asserted inability to attend. The tribunal then decided to determine the claim in her absence under Rule 47.

On the holiday pay claim, the tribunal found that the claimant had not discharged the burden of showing that she was entitled to any award. It said there was no evidence of her pay rate, working hours, leave-year dates, or the number of holiday days taken, accrued, untaken, or carried forward, and that without those details it could not calculate any daily entitlement. The tribunal therefore dismissed the claim, stating that the claimant had not established that she was due any holiday pay whether as a breach of contract, an unlawful deduction from wages, or under the Working Time Regulations 1998.