Holiday rights and absence

Case 6: The facts

A number of cases were stayed pending a decision by the Court of Appeal on whether the right to four weeks' paid annual leave under the Working Time Regulations 1998 applies to workers on long-term sick leave. The earlier case of Kigass Areo Components v Brown [2002] IRLR 312 had held that the right does apply.

The ruling

The Court of Appeal held that the Kigass case had been incorrectly decided, and that a worker on sickness absence cannot be said at some arbitrary period during that absence to be on annual leave.

It added that leave in such circumstances could not be said to serve the health and safety purpose that was intended by the legislation.

This means that workers on long-term sick leave who have exhausted their period of sick pay will not be entitled to take four weeks' annual leave at full pay during that period.

Commissioners of Inland Revenue v Ainsworth and others [2005] EWCA Civ 441