Where a contract of employment provided that "the employer may make a payment in lieu of notice to the employee" and the employer chose to summarily dismiss the employee without cause or pay in lieu of notice, the employee's claim was for damages for wrongful dismissal, subject to his duty to mitigate his loss, and not for a sum due under the contract, holds the Court of Appeal, by a majority, in Cerberus Software Ltd v Rowley.
A provision of a contract of employment, which entitled the employer to terminate the contract either by giving the employee notice or summarily on paying him in lieu of notice, did not give the employer a third option of giving no notice and making no, or less than full, payment, holds the EAT in Cerberus Software Ltd v Rowley.
An employee's contract of employment continued after an exchange of letters between the employee, giving one month's notice of termination, and her employer, confirming that it did not want her to work out her notice period and that her salary would be paid in lieu at the end of the notice period, holds the Court of Appeal in Hutchings v Coinseed Ltd.
The posting in a factory of a notice which stated that accrued holiday pay would not be given to employees dismissed for gross misconduct did not amount to the requisite written notification to the workers of a contractual term authorising a deduction from their wages, holds the EAT in (1) Kerr v The Sweater Shop (Scotland) Ltd (2) The Sweater Shop (Scotland) Ltd v Park.
In Delaney v Staples t/a De Montfort Recruitment, the House of Lords holds that a payment in lieu of notice, paid by an employer when terminating employment without notice, is not "wages"; and so cannot be the subject of a complaint to an industrial tribunal under the Wages Act 1986.
In the first Wages Act case to come before the Court of Appeal - Delaney v Staples t/a De Montfort Recruitment - the Court rules that a payment in lieu of notice is not "wages" and so cannot be the subject of a complaint under the Act.