Case 2601618/2021 · Employment Tribunal
Mr R Hudson v Samworth Farms Limited — 2022
- Case reference
- 2601618/2021
- Decision date
- 17 January 2022
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Broughton Appearances
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mr R Hudson
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe claimant began employment on 20 January 2020 under a written contract providing for a salary of £27,000 and overtime at £13 per hour. The tribunal found that in July 2020 the parties agreed to increase salary to £30,000 on the basis that this would cover 230 hours of overtime, with a review after three months, and that this arrangement was confirmed in the email of 15 July 2020. The claimant was initially unhappy with the change, but the tribunal found that he ultimately agreed to continue for the three-month period and then carried on working under the new terms.
The tribunal also found that in August 2020 Mr Price and the claimant agreed that the claimant would check and monitor the site remotely each evening for a fixed £6.50 per evening. It accepted the claimant's evidence that this was a fixed payment, not dependent on time spent, so he was not required to record it on Time Doctor. The tribunal accepted that the issue was raised again in December 2020 and then in April and May 2021, and it drew an adverse inference from the respondent's failure to call Mr Matts to address the later discussions.
On the overtime dispute, the tribunal found that the meeting and email exchange on 6 and 7 May 2021 recorded an agreement that the claimant would be paid £1,000 for overtime already worked from the start of 2021, and that his salary would rise to £32,000 from May 2021 to cover future overtime, weekend cover, and remote evening support. It held that the £1,000 was properly payable in the May 2021 salary payment and that non-payment was both an unauthorised deduction from wages and a breach of contract.
On the evening monitoring claim, the tribunal found that the claimant had an enforceable entitlement to £6.50 for each evening he monitored the site from 9 August 2020 to 30 April 2021, less one week when he refused overtime. It awarded £1,677 gross for that period. The total gross award was therefore £2,677, with the claimant to account to HMRC for tax and national insurance.
Claims and outcomes
2 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unlawful deduction from wages | Upheld for the unpaid £1,000 overtime settlement and the unpaid evening monitoring sums; the judgment did not apportion the monetary award between this claim and the breach of contract claim. | Upheld | — | — |
| Breach of contract | Alternative contractual basis for the same unpaid wages and monitoring payments; the judgment did not apportion the monetary award between this claim and the unlawful deduction claim. | Upheld | — | — |
Remedy
Monetary award- Total award
- £2,677
- across all upheld claims
Legal tests applied
13 references- s.13 Employment Rights Act 1996
- s.23 Employment Rights Act 1996
- Article 7 Employment Tribunals Extension of Jurisdiction Order 1994
- Arnold v Britton
- contra proferentem
- Rigby v Ferodo Ltd
- Novakovic v Tesco Stores Ltd
- MacRuary v Washington Irvine Ltd
- WE Cox Toner (International) Ltd v Crook
- Post Office v Roberts
- Manzi v King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- Keefe v The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company Limited
- Welds v Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust & Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
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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