Court rules in favour of the sick over leave

Workers on long-term sick leave do not lose their right to paid annual leave, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled.

In this long-awaited decision in the Stringer case (previously run in the Court of Appeal as Commissioners of Inland Revenue v Ainsworth [2005] IRLR 265), the ECJ said that under Article 7 of the Working Time Directive, where a worker is off sick for an entire leave year, the employer can refuse to allow paid annual leave during the sick leave only if the worker is permitted to take the accrued leave at some other time.

The ECJ also found that where the employment relationship ends, workers will be entitled to a payment in lieu of accrued, but untaken leave at their normal salary rate.

The Stringer case now returns to the House of Lords for its final conclusions.

Schultz-Hoff v Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund C-350/06; Stringer & others v HM Revenue and Customs C-520/06