Mr A Cooper v Loudslurp MHS Ltd — 2020

Mr Cooper brought a claim for unauthorised deduction from wages arising from his final payment on leaving Loudslurp MHS Ltd. The tribunal noted that he did not receive a payslip for the last period, which made it difficult to work out the precise deduction, but it accepted that his employment ran from 10 December 2019 to 30 January 2020 and that he had signed a contract on 11 December 2019.

The respondent argued that it was entitled to deduct sums because the claimant had not worked his notice period, and alternatively suggested it might recover training costs. The tribunal found that the claimant gave one week’s notice by letter dated 23 January 2020, with a last day of 30 January 2020, and accepted that he gave that letter to his manager, Maria Mirza. It also accepted that a chat message copied to the tribunal was a courtesy message to colleagues rather than notice to the employer.

The tribunal held that the claimant had complied with his contractual notice obligation and that there was therefore no basis for deduction from final pay. It also found that the contract contained no provision allowing training costs to be recovered by deduction, so that alternative justification also failed. Clause 11 of the contract allowed deduction only for loss suffered by the respondent or additional cover costs if the full notice period was not worked, which the tribunal found was not engaged on the facts.

On remedy, the claimant had said he expected a gross final payment of £1,143.14 and had received £859.41 into his bank account. The tribunal explained that those figures were not directly comparable, accepted the claimant’s evidence that around £60 would have been deducted for tax and national insurance, and calculated the net amount that should have been paid as about £1,083.14. The resulting deficit was £223.73, and that was the sum ordered to be paid forthwith.