Holiday Pay Claims

Following the recent holiday pay ruling, the President of the Employment Tribunals has directed that claimants who have already issued a claim for underpaid holiday can amend that claim to add a further complaint of underpayment arising after the original complaint was presented.  This means that it will not be necessary to issue a new claim each time there is an underpayment and incur a further fee.

In Bear Scotland Ltd and others v Fulton and others, the EAT ruled that claims will be out of time if there has been a gap of more than three months between underpayments. As a result, instead of being able to put in one claim covering underpayments going back over a number of years, claimants have to put in a claim each time an underpayment is followed by a correct payment of salary and they have three months from the date of the underpayment in which to do so.    

The direction from the President of the Employment Tribunals means that additional claims can be made by way of an amendment to the original claim and it will not be necessary for claimants to issue a fresh claim and incur a further fee. Adding claims by amendment will only be possible if the further claim could not have been included in the original claim.   

The direction applies equally to cases in England and Wales and in Scotland.