Mr B Rai v Mr K Aziz Dar — 2021

Mr B Rai brought a claim for arrears of pay in the sum of £2,146 for the period 10 March to 13 August 2019. The respondent, Mr K Aziz Dar, had paid £2,150 on 18 May 2020 after the claim was presented. At a preliminary hearing on 5 June 2020, Mr Rai accepted that he had received payment of the arrears he was claiming, but said he wished to continue because he had allegedly suffered financial losses from the delay in payment.

The issues listed for the final hearing were whether the claim had been settled, whether Mr Rai was a worker for the purposes of bringing a claim for unauthorised deduction from wages under section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, and, if so, whether he had sustained financial losses attributable to the late payment that could be compensated under section 24(2) of the Employment Rights Act 1996. Mr Aziz Dar attended and produced invoices said to support his case that Mr Rai was self-employed. Mr Rai did not attend the video hearing.

The tribunal waited until 10.20am, noted that Mr Rai had been aware of the hearing date and of the video arrangements, and recorded that there had been no contact from him since the preliminary hearing. In the absence of any explanation for non-attendance, the tribunal said it could not decide the outstanding issues without evidence from Mr Rai. It concluded that he appeared no longer to wish to pursue the outstanding elements of the claim and that postponing the hearing would not be in accordance with the overriding objective.

The claim was therefore dismissed under rule 47 of the Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure 2013 for non-attendance. No compensation or other monetary award was made.