Miss F Florescu v F & H Coffee Ltd — 2020

F&H Coffee Limited did not present a response to the claim, and Employment Judge Little entered judgment under Rule 21 of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013. Because remedy could not be assessed from the claim form alone, the claimant attended a telephone hearing and gave information about her week's pay, the period for which she had not been paid, and her holiday pay claim.

Judgment was entered for wrongful dismissal, unauthorised deduction from wages, and holiday pay. The tribunal awarded £369.23 for wrongful dismissal, being one week's pay, found that the claimant had not been paid for the period 22 January 2020 to 4 February 2020 and awarded £738.46 for unpaid wages, and awarded £200 for accrued but untaken holiday. The total award was £1,307.69, payable forthwith.

The claims for unfair dismissal and statutory redundancy pay were dismissed. The tribunal found that the claimant had only six months' service and therefore did not have the right not to be unfairly dismissed. Although the claim form referred to pregnancy at the date of dismissal, the claimant accepted that the respondent would not have known of it, so the tribunal said she could not pursue automatic unfair dismissal on that basis.

The redundancy pay claim was also dismissed because the claimant did not have sufficient service and there was no suggestion that she was dismissed because of redundancy. The tribunal recorded that the dismissal was apparently because she took time off when ill.