Ms. Maria Dias v Margo Deans and Willie Deans (a partnership) — 2021

The tribunal found that Ms Maria Dias was employed by Margo Deans and Willie Deans, trading as Deans Restaurant, as a cleaner from 18 September 2020 to 4 October 2020 at £9 per hour, paid monthly in arrears. No written statement of terms had been provided. It accepted that there was no contract term or written consent authorising deductions from wages, and that the respondent relied on text messages after a lost booking but did not produce documentary evidence showing a concluded agreement to deduct any sum.

On the pay claim, the tribunal preferred the respondent's evidence that the claimant worked 13.25 hours between 30 September 2020 and 4 October 2020, rather than the claimant's higher calculations, because her timesheets and later corrections were unreliable. It found that £119.25 was properly payable for that period and had not been paid, so the complaint of unauthorised deduction from wages for 30 September 2020 to 4 October 2020 was well-founded. The separate complaint of unauthorised deduction for 18 September 2020 to 29 September 2020 was dismissed as not well-founded.

The tribunal also rejected the claimant's request for compensation under section 24(2) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 because she could not identify financial loss attributable to the deduction claim. Her unfair dismissal complaint was dismissed for want of jurisdiction: the claim form stated that employment lasted only from 18 September 2020 to 4 October 2020, so the two-year qualifying period in section 108(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 was not met, and no automatically unfair dismissal ground was disclosed. The respondent's title was amended to Margo Deans and Willie Deans (a partnership) t/a Deans Restaurant.