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Employment Law
Case Law
Harpur Trust v Brazel: Appeal rejected and ruling still stands Published: 20 July 2022 Emailed: 20 July 2022
In May 2019, the court of appeal ruled that Harpur trust’s holiday calculation for Brazel, using the 12.07% method, was unlawful. Following an appeal to the supreme court, It has been published today that Harpur Trust’s appeal has been dismissed unanimously and the ruling still stands. Brazel was a part-time music teacher, who had varying hours throughout the year. When taking holiday, her employer calculated her holiday pay at 12.07% of hours worked. Brazel disagreed with the method, as the prescribed method in legislation was to use a reference period of 12 calendar weeks to calculate the holiday due.
It should be noted that legislation has been updated since this case started, and the current prescribed reference period is 52 weeks.
The court ruled that Mrs Brazel’s method was ri ght, and today the supreme court has backed this judgement.
The CIPP advises all employers to ensure they are using the 52-week reference period method to calculate holiday pay, as this is the method specified by legislation. The CIPP policy team will provide further information regarding the case and its implications in due course.
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CV fraudster ordered to pay back portion of wages Published: 22 August 2022 Emailed: 24 August 2022
The Supreme Court has issued a judgement for R v Andrewes, a case of CV fraud, for which Andrewes pleaded guilty in 2017.
Andrewes successfully applied for a job as CEO at St Margaret’ s Hospital, making the false claims that he had university degrees and significant past experience. He also later made the untrue claim that he obtained a PHD. The employment started in December 2004 and went until March 2015.
The Crown Court ordered for the full amount of net earnings to be reclaimed by the employers. However, the Court of Appeal found that no confiscation order should be made.
The judgement concludes that a confiscation order is to be upheld for wages earned in the position, but not on a “take all” basis. The Supreme Court seeks to confiscate the difference between the higher amount made through fraud and a lower amount that would be expected if no fraud had occurred. The proportional response avoids “double confiscation” for service ren dered, while reclaiming “profit” made through false claims.
This amounted to around £97,000 to be repaid, rather than around £643,000 had a full confiscation order been upheld.
The press summary provided by the court states:
“This is to adopt a principled “middle way” in contrast to either a “take all” approach (as advocated by the Crown) or a “take nothing” approach (as adopted by the Court of Appeal).”
While such situations are rare, this judgement may open the door for employers to take further action against employees found to be engaging in CV fraud.
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