Case 2415111/2018 · Employment Tribunal
Ms L Owens v Roberts Solicitors Ltd — 2019
- Case reference
- 2415111/2018
- Decision date
- 27 August 2019
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Holmes REPRESENTATION
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Ms L Owens
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningMs L Owens, a solicitor in the respondent firm's conveyancing practice, started work on 30 January 2017 under written terms providing normal hours of 9.00 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., a salary of £20,000 and a bonus scheme later described as 20% of fees above £5,000 per month with a £200 retention pending Land Registry registration. In March and April 2018 she raised concerns about pay and workload, and in June and early July 2018 she objected to being involved with GoMoveMe, removed the email banner, asked not to take certain calls, and was invited to a disciplinary hearing about those matters, accounting errors and being behind with work.
On 9 July 2018 the claimant said she was not giving notice but would leave as soon as possible, referring to compliance concerns and dyslexia. Applying Western Excavating, the implied term of trust and confidence and the Omilaju final-straw approach, the tribunal held that the 4 July disciplinary invitation was a legitimate response rather than a repudiatory breach or an objectively insignificant last straw. It found that she resigned because she had decided to move on and had secured alternative employment by mid-July, not because of any fundamental breach by the respondent.
Accordingly the constructive wrongful dismissal claim failed, and the related contract and damages heads also failed, including the unpaid bonus claim. The salary/basic pay complaint was withdrawn; the remaining deduction claims were dismissed, with the £200 fee/insurance deduction also found to be out of time and the abortive-fees complaint dismissed as outside the tribunal's power to rewrite the contract. The Working Time Regulations claims failed because there was no request and refusal under regulation 30 and the regulation 4 hours point was not enforceable in that form.
The respondent's counterclaim for breach of notice succeeded only to nominal damages. The tribunal declared that the claimant's resignation without notice was a breach of contract, but it did not accept the claimed fee-income loss and awarded £1 only.
Claims and outcomes
6 findings recordedThis case has mixed outcomes under at least one legal claim type. A tribunal can uphold some allegations and dismiss others under the same legal head, so rows below may represent separate issues or allegation groups from the judgment.
| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Constructive dismissal | The claimant's breach of contract case was framed as constructive wrongful dismissal. The tribunal found no fundamental breach, no valid last straw, and no resignation in response to the respondent's conduct; the related bonus and damages heads also failed. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Unlawful deduction from wages | The claim for non-payment of salary/basic pay was withdrawn by the claimant and dismissed upon withdrawal. | Withdrawn | — | — |
| Unlawful deduction from wages | The remaining deduction allegations, including the two £200 retentions and the £200 fee/insurance deduction, were dismissed; one element was time-barred and the others were not proved. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Other | The complaint that the firm's abortive-fees policy unfairly excluded aborted transactions from bonus calculations was dismissed; the tribunal held it was not a claim it could rewrite as an unfair term. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Working time regulations | The claims under the Working Time Regulations and related hours/NMW complaints were dismissed because the claimant identified no request and refusal of a right under regulation 30, and the regulation 4 weekly-hours point was not enforceable in this way. |
Remedy
Monetary award- Total award
- £1
- across all upheld claims
Legal tests applied
10 references- Western Excavating (ECC) Ltd v Sharp
- implied term of trust and confidence
- Malik v BCCI
- Wood v W M Car Services (Peterborough) Ltd
- London Borough of Waltham Forest v Omilaju
- s.86(2) ERA 1996
- s.23(2)(a) ERA 1996
- Carter v Prestige Nursing Ltd
- Miles v Linkage Community Trust
- Surrey CC v Bredero Homes Ltd
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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