Employment solicitor Paul Burton, says “There have been many cases over the last few years regarding how sickness absence and holiday pay interacts.” Another case has just been decided by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) which provided useful clarification on one of the many aspects that remains unclear in this area.
The EAT has decided in Sood Enterprises v Healey that additional annual leave cannot be carried forward in the absence of an agreement between the parties.
Mr Healy was off work sick for a year and a half when he resigned. The EAT held that unlike ‘ordinary’ annual leave, provided for by the Working Time Regulations 1998, additional annual leave cannot be carried over unless there is an agreement in place between the parties, which there was not. In other words, when an individual is on long-term sick leave, only four weeks’ annual leave carries over automatically – and not the additional 1.6 weeks granted by UK law which exceeds the European minimum of four weeks’ annual leave.
For a free initial meeting please call 01202 499255 and Kate or Paul will be happy to discuss any questions you may have.
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