Case 6012517/2024 · Employment Tribunal
Mrs S Seddon v North Yorkshire Council — 2025
- Case reference
- 6012517/2024
- Decision date
- 9 May 2025
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Langridge Representation
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mrs S Seddon
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe claimant brought a breach of contract claim for an enhanced redundancy payment, asserting that a Hambleton District Council redundancy formula had become an implied contractual term by custom and practice and had transferred to the respondent under TUPE. She limited the claim to GBP 25,000 because of the tribunal's jurisdictional cap, although the enhanced element claimed was around GBP 34,000.
The tribunal found that the relevant policies gave employees a right to have discretion considered, but not a contractual entitlement to automatic enhanced redundancy compensation. The uplift to a week's pay was treated differently from additional discretionary compensation, which was subject to agreement in each case and a sound business case.
The tribunal concluded that the claimant had not proved a custom or practice creating a contractual right. The evidence did not show the formula was applied without exception for a substantial period, and the employer's practice was equally explicable as discretionary rather than legally obligatory.
Claims and outcomes
1 finding recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breach of contract | The claim related solely to an asserted contractual entitlement to an enhanced redundancy payment. It was dismissed because the tribunal found no implied contractual entitlement to automatic payment under the Hambleton District Council formula. | Dismissed | — | — |
Legal tests applied
6 references- custom and practice
- Duke v Reliance Systems Ltd [1982] IRLR 347
- Quinn v Calder Industrial Materials Ltd [1996] IRLR 126
- Albion Automotive Ltd v Walker [2002] EWCA Civ 946
- Park Cakes Ltd v Shumba [2013] IRLR 800
- McAlinden v CSC Computer Sciences Ltd [2013] EWCA Civ 1435
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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