Law Weblog

Stringer v HMRC previously known as Ainsworth v HMRC

Tuesday 20 January 2009 at 12:02 pm | In News | Post Comment

This morning the ECJ has held:

• a worker who is on sick-leave for the whole of an annual leave year is entitled to a period of four weeks’ paid annual leave, despite the fact they are not actually at work. The national courts can decide whether the paid leave can be taken during that year, or whether it should be carried over to another year, but either way the employee is entitled to be paid at some point.

• the right to paid annual leave is not extinguished at the end of a leave year if the worker was on sick leave for the whole of that year, or if he was absent on sick leave for part of the year and was still on sick-leave when his employment terminates

This has to return to the House of Lords who will no doubt appoly the ruling to overturn the Court of Appeal’s decision from April 2005 that the right to paid holiday leave did not accrue during periods of sickness absence.

Employers are not going to like this.