In person For the v Mr Callum Gale, Ops Director — 2019

Mr Chris Staton brought a claim for unauthorised deductions from wages against JG Environmental Limited. The respondent accepted the correct name of the employer and the tribunal considered four heads of deduction in turn. The judge found that the claim succeeded overall and entered judgment for the claimant in the gross sum of £488.00, subject to tax and National Insurance.

The first successful head was an £18.00 return fee. The claimant said he had not received an email telling him to collect stock, but was later charged the return fee when the stock was not picked up. The tribunal accepted that evidence and held that, because he had not been informed that he needed to collect the stock, the respondent was not entitled to make the deduction.

The second successful head was a £130.00 parking ticket deduction. The claimant said he had been sent to work in Belsize Park, had been told in advance there was free parking, then was told by his manager Roy to park on the road and that the customer would pay any penalty charge. The tribunal accepted the claimant as an honest witness and found that the respondent was not entitled to deduct the parking ticket sum in those circumstances.

The third successful head was £340.00 in commission or bonuses earned in September 2018. The tribunal considered the respondent's clause saying commission would only be paid if the employee was active on the payroll, but found the clause ambiguous and not clear enough to deprive the claimant of commission already earned before his employment ended on 15 October 2018. The tribunal referred to Brand v Compro Computer Services Limited in support of that approach.

The final head, holiday entitlement, failed. The claimant accepted that his holiday entitlement as at 15 October 2018 would have been 22.09 days and that he had in fact taken 22.5 days. On that basis the tribunal held there was no accrued holiday entitlement outstanding at dismissal, so no deduction arose from that head.