Industrial Tribunals Northern Ireland Decisions

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THE INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNALS

CASE REF: 1364/08

CLAIMANT: Olivia Lavery

RESPONDENT: Warehouse Direct (Discount Stores) Limited

DECISION

The unanimous decision of the tribunal is that the claimant is entitled to receive the sums set out in the table immediately below in respect of a redundancy payment, pay in lieu of notice and unpaid holiday pay. The respondent is ordered to pay the following sums to the claimant:-

Redundancy payment	£2,300.00
Payment in lieu of notice	£1,480.00
Holiday pay	£ 194.25

Constitution of Tribunal:

Chairman: Ms Crooke

Members: Mr Lyttle

Mr Archer

Appearances:

The claimant was represented by her husband, Mr Michael Lavery.

The respondent did not enter any appearance, did not appear at the hearing of this matter and did not instruct any representation on its behalf.

The claim and the defence

1. The claimant claimed that she was entitled to a redundancy payment, a payment in lieu of notice and a payment for unpaid holidays. The respondent did not enter any defence.

Sources of evidence

2. The tribunal heard from the claimant who gave evidence on her own behalf and perused some pay-slips and other miscellaneous documents which she provided.

The relevant law

3. The relevant law is found in Article 45 and Article 170 of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996. The tribunal also referred to the Working Time Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998.

The facts

4. The claimant was employed by the respondent as a sales assistant in its shop at 6A West Street, Portadown, County Armagh.

5. She commenced working with the respondent in or around the third week of July 2000. There had been some closures of the respondent’s other shops and it became clear to the claimant that the shop in which she worked was being run down. Although she had been told by a manager in the respondent company called Nancy Cavanagh that she would be relocated, the shop closed on 18 July 2008 at 1.45 pm without any warning.

6. Since the date of closure, the claimant has not been able to receive any of the sums due to her, but it appears that some of the respondent’s shops are still trading as at the hearing of this matter.

Conclusions

7. At the date of termination of employment the claimant had eight completed years of service and she was being paid at the gross weekly rate of £200. Given the claimant’s date of birth of 13 July 1961 the tribunal concluded that she had one year of service at a multiplier of 1 and seven years of service at a multiplier of 1.5:-

1 year @ 1 x 200 = £ 200

7 years@ 1.5 x 200 = £2,100

Total = £2,300

8. As the claimant had eight completed years of service and was paid at a net weekly rate of £185 at termination of employment the tribunal concluded that she was entitled to receive a payment in lieu of notice calculated as follows:-

8 weeks x 185 = £1,480

9. At the termination of her employment the claimant claimed that she was entitled to a payment in lieu of holiday entitlement. By virtue of the pay-slips provided, the claimant was entitled to a holiday allowance of 28 days per year including statutory days and the holiday entitlement year ran from 1 April to 31 March in each year. The tribunal calculated that the claimant would have been entitled to an accrued amount of 5.25 days of her remaining entitlement as she had worked from April until 18 July 2008 and concluded that she was entitled to a holiday payment in lieu of taking the actual holidays calculated as follows:-

5.25 x £185 = £194.25

5

10. This is a relevant decision for the purposes of the Industrial Tribunals (Interest) Order (Northern Ireland) 1990.

Chairman:

Date and place of hearing: 12 August, Belfast

Date decision recorded in register and issued to parties:

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