A Kemp Miss A Sutherland v Thurso Dry Cleaning Laundrette — 2019

Miss Alison Sutherland had worked at Thurso Dry Cleaning Laundrette from at latest 5 April 2000 and was a Laundry Assistant. In July 2018 Ms Katrina Leask produced a draft contract that included zero-hours-style wording, a deductions clause, a variation clause, and blanks for the employee's name, date of continuous service, and rate of pay. After the claimant sought advice from CAB and ACAS, she said she would work under protest rather than sign the draft as presented.

The tribunal preferred the claimant's evidence about the meeting on 31 July 2018, supported in part by Miss Sharon Sharratt, Mrs Fiona Young, and the surrounding events. It found that Ms Leask told the claimant she had to sign the contract or she could not work there, told her to go or leave when she refused, and said she would not get another penny out of her. Applying s.95(1)(a) ERA 1996, those words terminated the contract of employment. The later texts and letters, including the correspondence of 1 and 6 August 2018, were not a timely retraction.

The tribunal held that the dismissal was unfair. No potentially fair reason under s.98 ERA 1996 was advanced or found, and the reason was not redundancy. The redundancy payment claim was therefore dismissed. The notice pay claim also failed because no separate loss remained once the compensatory award was taken into account. The holiday pay claim had already been settled and was withdrawn.

For remedy, the tribunal found 18 years' continuous service and a weekly pay figure of 291.44, which produced a basic award of 7286.25 before reduction. It reduced the basic award by 60% to 2914.40 because the claimant unreasonably refused the later offer to return and discuss the contract. The compensatory award was 1127.58, made up of loss to 17 August 2018, further loss to the hearing date, and 300 for loss of statutory rights. The total award was 4041.98, and the compensatory element was the prescribed sum for recoupment.