Ms S Thompson v Style & Comfort Interiors Limited — 2019

At the 11 November 2019 hearing, Employment Judge Horne decided that Style & Comfort Interiors Ltd had made unlawful deductions from Ms S Thompson's commission payments. The tribunal accepted that Ms Thompson was entitled to commission under an oral agreement, and it resolved the gross/net dispute in the respondent's favour. Judgment was then entered for the claimant in the sum of £811.26 for unlawfully-deducted commission, and that judgment was sent to the parties on 2 December 2019.

The respondent later applied for reconsideration, seeking to reduce the award by £121.22. It argued that three commission items should be excluded, relying on an established customer defence for one item and bad debts for the other two. The tribunal refused the application under Rules 70 to 72 of the Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure 2013, holding that there was no reasonable prospect of the original decision being varied or revoked and that reconsideration was not necessary in the interests of justice.

On the established customer issue, the tribunal found that Mr Doyle's comment, "There's no point in prolonging it", effectively abandoned that line of argument, and in any event there was no evidence on which the respondent could have succeeded. On the bad debts point, the tribunal treated it as a new line of argument that could have been raised at the hearing. The tribunal also relied on finality and proportionality, noting that the amount in dispute was less than £130 and that it would be disproportionate to convene another hearing. The application was dismissed and the judgment stood in the full amount.