Mr D Casement v Hose Care (UK) Limited trading as Pirtek Bradford — 2020

The tribunal treated the dispute as a breach of contract claim arising from the Respondent's alleged failure to pay the salary agreed when Mr Casement became Centre Manager in September 2016. Although the claim form also referred to arrears of pay and unauthorised deductions, the tribunal held that the claim was properly pursued as breach of contract and was in time because time ran from the end of employment on 27 March 2020.

The main factual issue was whether the agreed salary was the claimant's P60 earnings for the tax year ending April 2016, as he said, or £18,000 basic pay plus a guaranteed bonus, as the Respondent said. The tribunal preferred the claimant's account. It relied in particular on the email of 27 November 2016 stating that his new role salary would be a basic salary of £27,139 per annum which equated to the amount earned last financial year, and it found the claimant's explanation for not noticing the small difference between £27,612 and £27,139 plausible. It rejected Mr Lunt's explanation that the email was fabricated and that the Respondent later increased pay to the emailed figure because it feared the claimant would leave.

The tribunal found that the Respondent breached contract by paying £2,100 per month instead of the agreed salary from 1 September 2016 to 31 January 2020. It also found that the Respondent had not issued a section 1 statement of particulars, so the award was increased by two weeks' pay under section 38 of the Employment Act 2002, assessed at £1,050 and capped under section 227. The tribunal rejected a 25% uplift under section 207A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 because the claimant had not raised a formal written grievance, and it did not award the additional four weeks' pay. The operative order records £8,241 in damages and a total award of £9,291.