Mr F Magennis counsel For the v Miss A Crush Solicitor — 2022

This was a preliminary hearing in a multi-claim case brought by Mr Cox and others against Newrest Inflight UK Ltd. The sole issue decided was whether the claimants' contracts included an implied term that they were entitled to be paid for a meal break during each shift. The tribunal heard evidence from the respondent's HR and finance witnesses and from the lead claimants Mr Cox and Mr Smith, and considered contracts, payslips, timesheets, payroll screenshots and union correspondence.

The tribunal applied the approach in Park Cakes Ltd v Shumba to custom and usage, and also addressed the claimants' secondary business efficacy argument. It accepted that the contracts referred to meal breaks being "in accordance with statutory requirements and will be confirmed locally", but held that this described the statutory minimum break entitlement and did not itself create a contractual right to paid meal breaks. It also rejected the argument that the hours wording in some contracts meant the employees had to be paid for meal breaks as an express or implied part of the working-hours clauses.

On the facts, the tribunal was not satisfied that Alpha or Newrest had consistently paid transport workers for meal breaks or treated such payment as a contractual entitlement. It found the payslip material too limited to prove a consistent practice, accepted that the payroll rules were implemented from transfer, and rejected Mr Cox's evidence that Newrest initially paid the breaks. It also held that the collective grievance, the February 2020 emails and the 2005 case did not establish the asserted contractual right. The tribunal therefore rejected the implied-term case on both custom and usage and business efficacy, and no monetary remedy was awarded at this hearing.