Ms H Raval v Ms D Royal t/a Happy Days Nursery — 2022

The tribunal found that the parties had an informal and poorly documented working relationship at Happy Days Nursery, with limited reliable paperwork for attendance and fees. It preferred the claimant on many of the factual disputes about nursery procedures and rejected the respondent's counterclaim that the claimant had retained nursery monies for her own use. The respondent's evidence was found unreliable in important parts, but the tribunal also found the claimant's evidence inconsistent in some respects and concluded that neither party had been entirely truthful.

On the respondent's breach of contract counterclaim, the tribunal examined sample allegations concerning several children and found that the respondent had not discharged the burden of proving that monies were received by the claimant and not passed on. It gave limited weight to the cash collected receipts, found the registers to be unreliable, and attached little weight to the parents' emails because the parents were not called to give evidence. The counterclaim therefore failed in its entirety.

On the claimant's constructive dismissal case, the tribunal applied the Kaur v Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust five-question approach and the Waltham Forest v Omilaju cumulative conduct principle. It accepted that the respondent became concerned after a phone call from pupil one's mother, started an investigation, suspended the claimant, and sent the disciplinary invitation and other letters. It also accepted that some specific acts occurred, including the email of 10 June 2020, the short notice for the disciplinary hearing, the inclusion of further allegations in the disciplinary letter, the respondent's contact with Ms Butani, and the refusal of a 14-day extension. However, it found that these matters, alone or together, did not amount to a repudiatory breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence, that Mr Helsby's investigation was independent and fair, and that the claimant was not constructively dismissed. The wrongful dismissal claim therefore also failed.

The tribunal dismissed the unlawful deduction from wages claim by consent and rejected the claim for failure to provide written particulars because the written contract in the bundle contained the necessary particulars. No monetary award was made.