Miss L Hodgson v Hale Franchise Limited t/a Hobs Salons — 2020

Miss L Hodgson resigned as a Senior Stylist on 24 June 2020 and brought a claim for unlawful deductions from wages under section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The tribunal accepted that the respondent held a deduction agreement allowing deductions for negligence and for failure to return respondent property, and it accepted that the claimant had attended four training courses. The issue was whether the respondent had proved entitlement to deduct £400 for training, £255 for alleged negligence, and £150 for a manual from a final payment of £1,341.26.

The tribunal found that the claimant did not receive the training agreement, gave little weight to the evidence of Hollie Cooper, and accepted the claimant's evidence that she had not seen or signed the training paperwork. It therefore held that the respondent was not entitled to deduct £400 for training. It also found that the alleged negligent work did not happen: the client email relied on by the respondent was not convincing, there was no evidence of contemporaneous complaint in March 2020, and the grievance response made no reference to the alleged negligence. The deduction of £255 was therefore unlawful.

By contrast, the tribunal held that the respondent was entitled to deduct £150 for the manual, which the claimant accepted was the respondent's property. It found that the deduction agreement required return of respondent property and that the amount deducted was recoverable. The tribunal then calculated the sum payable as £1,191.26 after the lawful £150 deduction from £1,341.26.

The claimant had raised a grievance while still employed, and the tribunal found that the respondent unreasonably failed to comply with the ACAS Code of Practice on grievance matters. In particular, the grievance response denied any right of appeal, and when the claimant sought to raise further points she received an email from the respondent's account which the tribunal described as very abusive. Under section 207A TULRCA 1992, the tribunal increased the compensation by 10%, producing a final award of £1,310.38.