Claimant v Kinseed Ltd — 2022

The claimant worked as a software developer from 2 April 2020 to 14 May 2021. The tribunal’s task was to decide what holiday he had taken during the two holiday years, whether any untaken days carried over, and whether he had an unpaid holiday-pay balance on termination. It found the holiday records were confused because the claimant often did not use the respondent’s SharePoint booking system and both sides had made errors in their records.

On the evidence, the tribunal found that in the first holiday year the claimant had taken 25 days’ holiday, including bank holidays, the week after the birth of his child from 21 to 25 September 2020, five days in November 2020, Christmas week, 22 to 24 March 2021 for Persian New Year, and 31 March 2021. It rejected the respondent’s attempt to show that he had taken additional days. The tribunal also found that he had an effective opportunity to take leave during that year because he requested holiday and it was granted, and he did not complain about being unable to take holiday until after his employment had ended.

For the second holiday year, the tribunal found that the claimant took 2 April 2021, 5 April 2021 and 3 May 2021 as holiday. It held that there was no relevant agreement allowing carry-over from one holiday year to the next. On termination, the claimant had accrued but not taken 0.4 days’ holiday, but he had already been paid £146.15 in lieu of one day’s accrued holiday on his final payslip. The tribunal therefore held that the final wages covered the holiday entitlement and there was no unlawful deduction from wages, so the claim was dismissed. The respondent’s breach of contract counterclaim was not pursued and was dismissed on withdrawal.