Mr P Richards v Cox And Kings Destinations Management Services Limited — 2020

This was a default judgment under rule 21 of the Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2013. The respondent had not presented a response, but the tribunal was satisfied on the claimant's evidence that the respondent's directors and HR manager had actual notice of the claim and the hearing, and that there was sufficient material to determine liability on the papers.

The claimant's resignation letter of 9 August 2019 said he resigned because he had not been paid on time. His contract required payment on the 26th of each month, but the evidence showed payment for April 2019 was made on 30 April, for May on 31 May, for June on 8 July, and July 2019 had not been paid at all by the date of resignation. The tribunal found these failures, taken together, amounted to four repudiatory breaches of contract, with the final non-payment on 26 July 2019 the most serious.

Applying section 95(1)(c) ERA 1996 and the approach in Kaur v Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust [2018] EWCA Civ 978, the tribunal held that the claimant resigned in response to that repudiatory breach and that the constructive unfair dismissal claim succeeded. It also held that the claimant was owed wages at the date of dismissal, so the unlawful deduction from wages claim succeeded.

The tribunal further found that the claimant had not been paid for a contractual notice period, so the wrongful dismissal claim succeeded, and that he had accrued but untaken holiday entitlement at the date of resignation, so the Working Time Regulations claim also succeeded. The decision only determined liability; the case was relisted for a one-day remedy hearing on 11 May 2020, with the respondent permitted to participate, and no final monetary award was recorded in this judgment.