Ms B Olownia v Training in Electrical Limited Heard: Via Cloud Video Platform in the Midlands (East) Region — 2021

Ms B Olownia worked for Training in Electrical Limited from 3 December 2019 until 31 March 2021. The tribunal refused the claimant's late application to add a new five-month loss-of-earnings claim, applying the Selkent factors. It treated that proposed amendment as a new claim made late in the proceedings, out of time, and potentially outside the tribunal's jurisdiction.

The holiday pay claim succeeded. The tribunal found that the claimant's contract entitled her to 34 days' holiday a year, made up of 8 bank holidays and 26 additional days. It accepted that she had been paid for 8 bank holidays and a further 20 days' holiday pay on 7 April 2021, leaving 6 days unpaid. At the agreed daily rate of £150, the respondent was ordered to pay £900. The tribunal recorded this as both an unlawful deduction from wages and a breach of contract.

The bonus claim failed. The claimant said a bonus of £1,000 had been promised at a staff meeting on 17 December 2019, but the tribunal preferred Ms Nina Domansky's evidence that there was no record of any bonus promise or payment. It relied on the absence of accounting records, the evidence from the respondent's former accountant, and the fact that no other staff had received bonuses in the previous 12 years. The tribunal concluded that the claimant had not proved that the bonus was properly payable, so the claim for bonus was dismissed.