Case 3319410/2019 · Employment Tribunal
In person For the v Mrs Karavadra, Director — 2020
- Case reference
- 3319410/2019
- Decision date
- 3 March 2020
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Postle Appearances
- Venue
- Norwich
Parties
2 namedClaimant
In person For the
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe claimant was employed by the respondents, a convenience store in Norwich, from June 2016. The business was sold to the current owners in May 2019. The tribunal accepted from the claimant’s wage slips that she had consistently worked more than 24 hours per week during the earlier period of her employment. There was no joint bundle and no written witness statements, but the tribunal had documents from the respondent and the claimant’s wage slips.
After the new owners took over, the claimant’s hours were unilaterally reduced. At a meeting on 31 May 2019 the claimant raised the issue with Mrs Karavadra, and the respondents made clear that they would not honour the hours the claimant had previously been entitled to over the preceding years, whether that was 16 hours or 4 hours. The tribunal held that reducing the claimant’s hours from 24-plus per week to either 16 or 4 hours was a fundamental breach of contract, that the breach caused her to resign, and that she resigned immediately without delay. The constructive unfair dismissal claim therefore succeeded.
The tribunal rejected the statutory sick pay / unpaid wages claim and found that there had not been an unlawful deduction of wages. On compensation, it used the average of the claimant’s last 12 weeks’ pay: gross pay of £3,292.06, an average weekly gross of £274.33, and average net pay of £243.22. The claimant was 39 years old and had two complete years’ service, producing a basic award of £548.66.
The tribunal found that the claimant mitigated her loss by finding alternative work at Burger King in October, so she was out of work for 17 weeks. It assessed compensatory loss at £4,134.74 on the basis of net pay and also awarded £250 for loss of statutory rights. It made no ACAS uplift and found that recoupment did not apply because the claimant received no state benefits while unemployed. The judgment’s final paragraph of reasons states a total of £4,933.44, but the operative judgment and the component figures support a total of £4,933.40.
Claims and outcomes
2 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Constructive dismissal | The tribunal found that the unilateral reduction of the claimant’s hours from more than 24 per week to 16 or 4 hours was a fundamental breach of contract, that it caused her resignation, and that she resigned immediately. The written judgment contains a minor discrepancy on the total compensation figure: paragraph 2 records £4,933.40, while paragraph 9 states £4,933.44; the component figures set out in paragraph 8 sum to £4,933.40. | Upheld | — | £4,933 |
| Unlawful deduction from wages | The tribunal did not find an unlawful deduction of wages in relation to the statutory sick pay claim. | Dismissed | — | — |
Remedy
Monetary award- Total award
- £4,933
- across all upheld claims
- Basic award
- £549
- statutory, unfair dismissal
- Compensatory award
- £4,385
- compensatory remedy recorded
Legal tests applied
3 references- s.95(1)(c) ERA 1996
- fundamental breach of contract
- resignation without delay / affirmation
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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