Accrued salary and holiday pay on termination
Amanda Steadman is a professional support lawyer, Iain Naylor, Lucy Sorell and Rachael Wake are associates, and Jessica-Alice Curtis is a trainee solicitor at Addleshaw Goddard LLP. They round up the latest rulings.
The European Court of Justice has held that a payment must be made for accrued but untaken annual leave on the death of a worker.
This employer's laissez-faire approach to the carry-over of holiday into subsequent annual leave years resulted in an employment tribunal ordering it to pay an employee £4,272 in holiday pay when she was made redundant.
This employment tribunal held that employers should not circumvent the requirement to pay a departing worker for holiday that he or she has accrued but not taken by providing in the contract of employment that the worker will be entitled only to a nominal sum.
The Court of Appeal has held that an NHS worker who was absent for the whole leave year and who did not submit any requests for annual leave during her absence was entitled to holiday pay on the termination of her employment.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that employees on sick leave must, to be paid for holiday under the Working Time Regulations 1998, give the required statutory notice during the relevant leave year of their intention to take that holiday.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that a worker absent for the whole leave year, but who does not submit a request for the annual leave before the leave year ends, does not forfeit his or her entitlement to paid annual leave.
In HM Revenue and Customs v Stringer and others sub nom Commissioners of Inland Revenue v Ainsworth and others [2009] IRLR 677 HL, the House of Lords held that a claim for unpaid holiday due under the Working Time Regulations 1998 can be brought as an unlawful deductions from wages claim under ss.13 and 23 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
In Schultz-Hoff v Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund; Stringer and others v Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs Cases C-350/06 and C-520/06 ECJ, the ECJ has held that the Working Time Directive allows member states to prevent workers from taking annual leave during periods of sickness, provided that they are permitted to take it at some other time. If sickness prevents a worker from taking his or her annual leave entitlement, it must be carried over into the next leave year. Workers whose employment is terminated cannot have their payment in lieu of annual leave reduced on account of a period of sickness prior to the dismissal.
In Commissioners of Inland Revenue v Ainsworth and others, the Court of Appeal holds that workers absent through long-term sick leave who have exhausted their entitlement to sick pay are not entitled to four weeks' holiday pay when they have done no work during the leave year.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to accrued salary and holiday pay on termination.