No carry-over of additional leave

Sood Enterprises v Healy

Last year, the Court of Appeal decided that workers could carry over their Working Time Directive (WTD) holiday entitlement of four weeks. But it didn't go on to deal with what should happen to the additional 1.6 weeks' leave provided to UK workers under the Working Time Regulations (WTR).

That was the question for the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in this case. Mr Healy was off work for almost a year after suffering a stroke, although his leave spanned two leave years. When he resigned he wasn't paid for the leave which he'd been unable to take because of sickness, and brought an unlawful deduction from wages claim.

Mr Healy won his case and the tribunal ordered the employer to pay him more than the four weeks' leave entitlement under the WTD (dipping into the extra 1.6 weeks). But the EAT held that that was wrong - without a relevant agreement between Mr Healy and his employer, he could not be paid in lieu of all or any of the additional 1.6 weeks under the WTR.

So here's some clarity for UK employers. Where a worker is on long-term sick leave then unless you've agreed otherwise they are only entitled to carry over up to four (and not 5.6) weeks' leave