Mrs N Akhtar v New Focus Health Care Ltd — 2020

This was a paper judgment in a claim presented on 19 October 2019 for unlawful deductions from pay. The respondent filed a late response admitting that the claimant was owed £342.50 as pay for work done, and the tribunal recorded that the admitted amount had since been paid. By consent, the tribunal ordered the respondent to pay the claimant £342.50 unlawfully deducted from her pay, save insofar as that sum had already been paid.

The claimant also sought £360 for taxi fares incurred for travel to work on six occasions in August and September 2019 after an accident meant she could not drive. The tribunal held that these expense claims were not included on the original claim form and that no permission had been granted to amend the claim to add a breach of contract complaint.

The tribunal further considered section 24(2) Employment Rights Act 1996, which allows compensation for financial loss attributable to an unlawful deduction, but declined to make any award for the taxi fares. It found that the fares were not attributable to the unlawful deduction itself, but to the claimant's efforts to resolve the matter and to her inability to drive because of her accident. The taxi fare claim was therefore dismissed.