EAT National Minimum Wage – Unlawful Deduction – National minimum wage – unauthorised deduction from wages – section 23 Employment Rights Act 1996 – sections 9 and 39 Limitation Act 1980
The Claimant had successfully claimed that the Respondent had failed to pay him at national minimum wage rates and, at the subsequent Remedies Hearing before the ET, sought to recover payment for the sums that should have been paid, going back to the introduction of the National Minimum Wage Act, a period of some 15 years. The Respondent resisted that claim, contending that section 9 Limitation Act 1980 meant the Claimant could only recover sums going back six years. The ET agreed with the Respondent, holding that the three-month time limit for bringing an unauthorised deductions claim was concerned only with the question of the ET’s jurisdiction to determine the claim and did not amount to a period of limitation for the purposes of section 39 Limitation Act such as to disapply section 9. The Claimant appealed.
Held: allowing the appeal
Where a claim was brought under a statute that prescribed a period of limitation, section 39 Limitation Act 1980 provided that the limitations that would otherwise apply pursuant to that Act (including the six-year limitation under section 9 of the Limitation Act) would not do so. Claims for unauthorised deductions were subject to a period of limitation by virtue of subsections 23(2) and (3) Employment Rights Act 1996. The ET had been wrong to hold that this was not a period of limitation for the purposes of section 39 Limitation Act: section 39 drew no distinction between periods of limitation for jurisdictional or remedy purposes. The Claimant had brought his claim in respect of the series of deductions made from his pay within three months of the last of the deductions in the series, as prescribed by subsection 23(3) and was thus entitled to recover the sums that had been deducted from the wages properly payable to him, as provided by the National Minimum Wage Act, without the imposition of a back-stop of six years.
Judges:
Eady QC HHJ
Citations:
[2018] UKEAT 0200 – 17 – 2903
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 07 April 2022; Ref: scu.608288