Case 4106732/2020 · Employment Tribunal
Mr D Smith v Carmeleon Preperation Centre Limited — 2021
- Case reference
- 4106732/2020
- Decision date
- 2 February 2021
- Jurisdiction
- Scotland
- Judge
- Employment Judge Neilson
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mr D Smith
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningMr D Smith was employed from 1 February 2020 on a salary of £27,664 per annum and was placed on furlough from the beginning of April 2020. He received a payment at the end of April, which the tribunal found was 80% of pay under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. He did not receive salary in May, June, July or August 2020. The tribunal accepted that the parties had agreed furlough at 80% of normal pay, subject to the scheme cap, and found that this arrangement was not conditional on HMRC actually reimbursing the respondent.
The tribunal found that the respondent remained contractually and legally obliged to pay wages at the end of each month while the claimant remained on furlough, and that the respondent’s failure to pay in May and June was an unlawful deduction from wages. The claimant was also asked to take two weeks of holiday in June, which the tribunal found was permissible under regulation 15 of the Working Time Regulations 1998 and in any event was agreed by the claimant; June pay was therefore assessed at 100% for those two weeks and 80% for the balance of the month.
In July 2020 the respondent asked the claimant to return to work. The tribunal preferred the evidence of Mr Creamer and Mr Nicoll that the claimant refused to return, and found that from that point the respondent was not obliged to pay further wages because the claimant was no longer ready and willing to work. The tribunal also found that threatening text messages sent on 23 July 2020 amounted to gross misconduct justifying summary dismissal, but it held that the respondent could not lawfully backdate termination to 30 April 2020; termination took effect when the claimant received the dismissal letter on 27 July 2020. The claimant was therefore entitled to wages for July only up to 20 July 2020 at 80%.
The tribunal awarded £5,093.55 gross in respect of May, June and July 2020, subject to tax and National Insurance. It recorded that the claimant did not seek any additional compensation under section 24(2) ERA 1996.
Claims and outcomes
1 finding recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unlawful deduction from wages | The complaint was brought under section 23(1) ERA 1996 and covered arrears of pay, including holiday pay. The judgment does not record a separate standalone working time claim; the June holiday pay was dealt with as part of the wages claim. | Upheld | — | £5,094 |
Remedy
Monetary award- Total award
- £5,094
- across all upheld claims
Legal tests applied
5 references- s.23(1)(a) ERA 1996
- s.13 ERA 1996
- s.24 ERA 1996
- Miles v Wakefield Metropolitan District Council
- Walters T/A Rosewood v Barik
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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