J Ross v Optima Care — 2022

J Ross worked for Optima Care Limited as a Service Manager from 28 September 2020 to 4 April 2021. Her contract stated that additional hours would be paid at her normal rate, although the staff handbook said overtime had to be pre-authorised. The Tribunal accepted evidence that, in practice, managers could authorise overtime and that the contractual overtime clause applied to her despite the Respondent’s argument that it should not have been included for a management-grade employee.

The Tribunal found that the Claimant had worked and been authorised to do 6 hours of overtime on 14 and 15 December 2020, and 15 hours on 27 and 28 February 2021. It also found that 19 hours worked on 13 and 14 February 2021 were later paid by the Respondent. By contrast, the Claimant’s wider assertion that she had worked an additional 122 hours of approved overtime was not proved because she did not provide sufficient detail or documentary evidence showing the work done or why it had been authorised.

On limitation, the Tribunal accepted that the first unpaid overtime deduction in December 2020 would ordinarily have been out of time on its own, but held that it formed part of a series of deductions. Time therefore ran from the last deduction in the series, 7 March 2021, so the claim was in time under section 23(3) ERA 1996. Applying sections 13 and 27 ERA 1996, the Tribunal held that the Respondent had made unauthorised deductions from wages in respect of the unpaid overtime.

The Tribunal ordered the Respondent to pay the gross sum of £333.06, calculated as 21 unpaid hours at £15.86 per hour. No separate award was made for the February overtime already paid, and no other remedy was recorded.