Mrs J Johnson v L&M Sheridan Limited — 2022

Mrs J Johnson worked for L&M Sheridan Limited as a domiciliary care worker from 6 January 2019 until her resignation on 6 November 2021. The tribunal found that her original contract provided for 75 hours per lunar month, equating to 18.75 hours per week, and that a July 2019 document stating 30 hours was an error that was corrected and explained, so no contractual variation arose at that stage.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant's hours were increased informally and temporarily during the pandemic, first to around 22.5 hours per week between March and September 2020 and then to an average of 25 hours per week from September 2020, but found those arrangements were not intended to create legal relations. In June 2021 the parties agreed a permanent variation effective from 28 June 2021 under which she would work 30 hours per week on average over four weeks, subject to her availability, her husband's rota and the respondent's business needs. The tribunal rejected the claimant's case that she had agreed permanent early shifts irrespective of her husband's working pattern.

The only under-allocation identified by the tribunal was in August and September 2021, when the claimant was 1.75 hours short of the 30-hour average because she refused an offered late shift. The tribunal found that this shortfall resulted from her not following the agreed arrangement, not from any failure by the respondent to provide the hours contractually due, so the breach of contract claim was dismissed.

Separately, the claimant had pursued a Working Time Regulations 1998 claim about 11-hour rest breaks on 24 occasions between 18 April 2020 and 4 July 2021. She accepted at the hearing that the claim was out of time and withdrew it, and the tribunal recorded it as dismissed following withdrawal. A holiday pay point and any claim for injury to mental health were also withdrawn earlier in the proceedings, and no monetary award was made.