Mrs M Grygiel v Damian Gasiorowski (Deceased) — 2021

The claimant worked for the respondent as a shop assistant from 2 March 2018 until 1 December 2019. The respondent died on 28 May 2020 and no ET3 response was lodged, so the case proceeded on the basis of the claimant's essentially unchallenged evidence. The tribunal held that the unfair dismissal claim could not succeed because the claimant did not have sufficient qualifying service, and it noted that she had worked her two weeks' notice.

On pay, the tribunal accepted the claimant's evidence that the agreed rate was £9 per hour net, with the respondent responsible for tax and national insurance. On that basis it found an unlawful deduction from wages because no PAYE or national insurance had been accounted to HMRC during the employment. Using an average net wage of £325 per week over 92 weeks, the tribunal ordered £4,784.00 to HMRC and £1,407.60 to the claimant for the cost of voluntary Class 3 contributions. It also upheld the holiday pay claim, applying the statutory holiday year from 2 March to 1 March, calculating accrued leave to 1 December 2019, and deducting the £360 already paid for the claimant's month off in June 2019.

The tribunal found that most of the claimant's sex discrimination complaints were not made out and amounted to generalised criticism or bullying rather than treatment because of sex. It did, however, uphold one incident in October 2019 when the respondent offered to give the claimant a cuddle after she had started crying. The tribunal found that this incident was unwanted, related to sex, and amounted to direct discrimination, but it did not find that it caused the claimant to leave her employment. Compensation was assessed solely by reference to injury to feelings, and the tribunal awarded £1,000 at the lower end of the Vento scale.