Case 2302764/2023 · Employment Tribunal
Miss Ann Palmer v Surrey and Sussex healthcare NHS Trust — 2024
- Case reference
- 2302764/2023
- Decision date
- 19 January 2024
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Fowell Representation
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Miss Ann Palmer
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe claimant was a healthcare assistant working for the respondent as bank staff on a zero-hours contract. She accepted she was a worker and not an employee. Her original claim form raised issues about rolled-up holiday pay, pay differences between permanent staff and bank staff, and section 27A of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
The Tribunal struck out the existing claims on the basis that they had no reasonable prospects of success. It found that holiday pay was shown transparently on payslips as WTD pay, that the equal pay claim did not identify an obvious gender-based pay difference and faced an apparent material factor defence, and that section 27A did not apply to the suspension or non-allocation of shifts described by the claimant.
The Tribunal also refused applications to amend the claim to add constructive dismissal, unlawful deduction from wages, victimisation, and four named individual respondents. It found that constructive dismissal and breach of contract claims were only open to employees, the proposed wages claim was substantially out of time, and the proposed victimisation claim relied on the claim form as the protected act for detriments said to have occurred before it.
Claims and outcomes
6 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Working time regulations | Rolled-up holiday pay claim under the Working Time Regulations 1998; the Tribunal found no reasonable prospect of finding the arrangement unlawful where payments were shown transparently as WTD pay. | Struck out | — | — |
| Equal pay | The claimant said the discrimination box was ticked in error and that this was a sex discrimination/equal pay claim. The Tribunal found no obvious difference in pay based on gender and considered a material factor defence available. | Struck out | Sex | — |
| Other | Claim under section 27A Employment Rights Act 1996 concerning zero-hours contract provisions; the Tribunal found the provision did not apply to the claimant's suspension or non-allocation of shifts. | Struck out | — | — |
| Constructive dismissal | Application to amend to add constructive dismissal was refused; the Tribunal said constructive dismissal and breach of contract claims are only open to employees, and the claimant accepted she was not an employee. | Other | — | — |
| Unlawful deduction from wages | Application to amend to add unlawful deduction from wages was refused because the alleged February and April 2021 discrepancies were considerably out of time and not part of a continuing series. | Other | — | — |
| Victimisation | Application to amend to add victimisation was refused; the alleged protected act was the claim form itself, so earlier detriments could not logically have been because of it. |
Legal tests applied
4 references- Rule 37(1)(a) Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure
- Robinson-Steele v R D Retail Services Ltd [2006] IRLR 386
- Lyddon v Englefield Brickwork Ltd [2008] IRLR 198
- section 27A Employment Rights Act 1996
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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