Mr M Jaufurally, solicitor For the v Mr J Roddy, consultant — 2019

At the London Central hearing on 5 December 2019, the parties reached a consent outcome under which the respondent was ordered to pay the claimant £750 in respect of her unlawful deductions from wages claims. The tribunal noted that the claimant's ET1 and schedules also referred to holiday pay, and that a later schedule included a claim for unpaid overtime between May and September 2018. By the time the issues were clarified at hearing, the tribunal recorded four heads of claim, including the overtime head, and considered that the claimant may have misunderstood how some holiday pay had been calculated.

The claimant applied for costs under rule 76(1)(a) of the Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure on the basis that the respondent had behaved unreasonably in defending the claim and then consenting to judgment for £750. Employment Judge Joffe refused that application. The judge found there was no clear evidence of a without prejudice save as to costs offer, could not resolve the parties' conflicting accounts about settlement discussions, and could not conclude that defending the claim had been unreasonable.

In refusing costs, the tribunal relied on the fact that the claims were difficult to understand from the original ET1 and schedule, including a £1,000 element said to be for inconvenience and advice, and that the later schedule still did not explain the legal basis for the sums claimed. The judge also noted that the overtime claim appeared on its face to be out of time unless an extension were granted, that there had been no evidence explaining why it had not been pursued earlier, and that the eventual consent payment was less than a quarter of the sum claimed in the schedule.