Failure to pay wages for work done counts, in law, as an unauthorised deduction from wages. Your ex-employer has a duty to pay you pro rata for the hours you worked.
However, notice periods are there to protect both you and your employer. If you cannot show lawful reason for resigning without giving proper notice, your employer may in theory be entitled to try and recover its losses by suing you for breach of contract. More likely, it will include this episode in any reference you ask it to provide to a new employer.
If you can show that your employer was at fault, and you resigned because it had fundamentally breached the terms of your contract to the point where resignation was the only option, the situation would be different. This would then qualify as constructive dismissal.
Visit our constructive dismissal section for more information.
