Ms H Leal v Medina Connect Limited — 2021

The tribunal heard one claim for unauthorised deductions from wages arising from the claimant's sickness absence from March 2021. It accepted that the claimant had been employed under a contract that provided for occupational sick pay after six months' service until an employee triggered the sickness policy by either breaching a Bradford Factor score of 128 or having more than four episodes of absence in a rolling 12-month period, whichever came first.

The claimant argued that the clause should be read so that the Bradford Factor and absence-count triggers operated within a rolling 12-month period and that she therefore remained entitled to occupational sick pay. The respondent argued that the clause meant entitlement ended once either trigger was reached. The tribunal preferred the respondent's reading, saying the clause should be given its natural meaning and that it did not provide for occupational sick pay to be reinstated after a trigger had been reached.

On the evidence, the tribunal accepted Ms Kollar's explanation that occupational sick pay had effectively been rolled into full pay on earlier sickness absences and found the claimant had reached the first trigger on 9 March 2020. It also rejected the claimant's evidence that she had instead been treated as taking holiday during those absences. Because the claimant had already triggered the policy before her March 2021 sickness absence, the tribunal found she was no longer entitled to occupational sick pay and dismissed the unlawful deductions claim. It noted the claimant's alternative argument about new terms from April 2021, but said nothing turned on that issue.