Ms S L Bleanch v Kingly Solicitors Ltd. t/a Coles Solicitors (in voluntary liquidation) — 2021

Ms Bleanch had been employed by the respondent solicitors since 2 January 1991 as a legal assistant working three days per week. On 12 August 2020 the Solicitors Regulation Authority intervened and the respondent's offices closed immediately. The tribunal found that she was dismissed by reason of redundancy on that date, that she had no written contract or compliant written statement of particulars, and that her statutory notice period was 12 weeks because she had 29 years' service.

The redundancy payment claim was dismissed because she had already received a statutory redundancy payment from the Redundancy Payments Service. The breach of contract claim succeeded for notice pay and holiday pay: the tribunal accepted the claimant's pay figures, found that she had accrued 19 days' annual leave in the holiday year, had taken 3 days, and was owed pay in lieu of the remaining untaken leave. It also awarded employer pension contributions for the notice period. The unlawful deduction from wages claim succeeded for pay due for 1 to 12 August 2020, again with employer pension contributions added to the award.

The unfair dismissal claim succeeded because there had been no warning, notice or consultation before the closure. However, no compensation was payable on that claim: the basic award was extinguished by the statutory redundancy payment, and the compensatory award was reduced by 100% on a Polkey basis because the tribunal found that she would have been dismissed in any event when the offices closed on 12 August 2020. The tribunal also made a section 38 Employment Act 2002 award of two weeks' pay for the failure to provide written particulars, and it declined any ACAS uplift.