Overpayments
In McKenzie-Bayliss v The Crown Prosecution Service, an employment tribunal held that a homeworking employee who relocated to North-East England but carried out work for the South-East region was no longer entitled to receive pay at the London rate.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that, where an employee's pay for a period is reduced to recover an overpayment for a previous period, that reduction represents a deduction that should be identified on the employee's payslip.
Claire Benson is managing associate and Caroline Jacobs and Chris McAvoy are associates at Addleshaw Goddard LLP. They round up the latest rulings.
Employees whose contractual working hours were 39 hours per week but who, in practice, were required to work six hours' overtime made available to them to the extent of 45 hours per week were not guaranteed that overtime, so holds the EAT in Spence and others v City of Sunderland Council.
An employer's right to require overtime from an employee who is under a contractual obligation to be "on call" for a specified number of hours in excess of his basic working week, is subject to the employer's implied duty to take reasonable care not to injure its employee's health, holds the Court of Appeal in Johnstone v Bloomsbury Health Authority.
Where an employer has mistakenly overpaid an employee, the money can be recovered if it was paid because of a mistake of fact. However in a warning to employers operating computerised payment systems, the Court of Appeal in The County Council of Avon v Howlett holds that the defence of estoppel may operate to prevent recovery of all the money even if the employee has spent only some of it.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to overpayments.