Mr P Flemming v Kingly Solicitors Ltd. t/a Coles Solicitors (in voluntary liquidation) — 2021

Mr P Flemming worked for Kingly Solicitors Ltd. from 2 January 2016 as a solicitor, later reducing to four days per week in 2019. On 12 August 2020 the respondent was subject to an intervention by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and all offices were immediately closed. The tribunal found that the claimant was dismissed by reason of redundancy on that date, with no warning, consultation, or notice of redundancy. It accepted that the claimant was contractually entitled to three months' notice, that the holiday year ran from 1 January to 31 December 2020, and that he had 23 days accrued but untaken holiday at termination. The tribunal also accepted the payslip evidence on pay and employer pension contribution rates, and noted that the claimant found alternative employment on 20 August 2020.

The breach of contract claim succeeded in respect of notice pay and holiday pay. The tribunal awarded £259.38 for notice pay and £40.24 for the employer pension contribution element for the notice period, after taking account of the notice sum paid by the Redundancy Payments Service. It also awarded £2,547.33 for accrued but untaken holiday, representing 20.5 days less the holiday pay already received from the Redundancy Payments Service.

The unlawful deduction from wages claim also succeeded. The tribunal found that the claimant had not been paid for 1 to 12 August 2020 and that there was no lawful reason to withhold payment. It awarded £1,837.29 for arrears of pay after crediting the amount received from the Redundancy Payments Service, together with £120.72 for employer pension contributions for that period. On the unfair dismissal claim, the tribunal held that the dismissal was procedurally unfair, but no basic award was payable because the claimant had already received a statutory redundancy payment, and the compensatory award was reduced by 100% under Polkey because he would have been dismissed in any event when the offices closed. The tribunal held that the ACAS Code did not apply to the unfair dismissal claim because redundancy was the reason for dismissal, and it made no uplift on the contract or wages claims. The total award was £4,804.96, and the recoupment regulations did not apply.