Mr D Hutcheon, Counsel. For the v Respondent — 2019

The case concerned whether a letter from the claimants' representative dated 20 March 2019 had the effect of withdrawing six claimants' claims. The tribunal recorded that the original proceedings included claims about part-time worker treatment, statutory annual leave, and annual leave payments in respect of voluntary overtime. The six named claimants were said in the letter to have only claims for miscalculated overtime, and the letter was treated administratively as a withdrawal before withdrawal judgments were sent on 15 April 2019.

After the first respondent relied on those withdrawal judgments in relation to a later claim by Mr Hepden, the tribunal reconsidered the wording of the 20 March 2019 letter and the earlier correspondence. It found that the letter was unclear and not well drafted, and that the surrounding material showed ambiguity about whether the six claimants were withdrawing all claims or only the part-time worker claims. The tribunal also noted that the phrase used in earlier correspondence, and repeated in the March letter, was itself ambiguous because the claim was actually about holiday pay calculations not including additional hours/overtime.

Applying the approach in Segor and Campbell, the tribunal held that the withdrawal had not been clear, unambiguous and unequivocal. It therefore concluded that the 20 March 2019 letter did not withdraw all of the claims of those six claimants. The claim that holiday pay did not take into account additional hours/overtime of those six claimants remained to be determined. No remedy was awarded in this judgment, which was confined to the withdrawal issue.