Employment Law Cases

A ban on workers wearing any visible sign of political, philosophical or religious belief in the workplace does not amount to direct discrimination under EU law, provided that such a rule is applied in a general and unconditional way.

The dismissal of an employee who remained abroad at the start of the pandemic was automatically unfair on health and safety grounds.

Departing from previous authority, the EAT has held that a constructive dismissal can amount to harassment under the Equality Act.

Because a whistleblower’s behaviour after he’d blown the whistle was separate and distinct from his act of whistleblowing, his subsequent dismissal was not automatically unfair.

Tribunals must accept as fact that women still bear the primary burden of childcare responsibilities and this hinders their ability to work certain hours.

Riders for Deliveroo are not ‘workers’ and not in an ‘employment relationship’ for the purposes of European law such as to enable them to seek compulsory union recognition.

The dismissal of an employee who’d expressed concerns about commuting during COVID-19 and who asked to be furloughed was not automatically unfair.

An employee was unfairly dismissed for raising health and safety issues about lack of PPE and other workplace COVID-secure measures.

The power to grant an interim relief order is not available in discrimination claims.

‘Gender-critical’ beliefs, including a belief that biological sex is real, important, immutable and not to be conflated with gender identity, are protected under the Equality Act and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The treaty which forms the basis of the right to equal pay in European law has direct effect in respect of claims where work is said to be of equal value, and not merely in respect of other instances of ‘equal work’ under UK legislation (i.e. like work or work rated as equivalent). It therefore can be invoked in legal proceedings between individuals directly.

Mutuality of obligations, in the sense of an obligation to accept and perform some minimum amount of work, is not a prerequisite for ‘worker’ status.

A contractual right to vary contractual terms does not prevent a dismissal claim under TUPE.

An incorporated collectively agreed term was not apt for incorporation into an individual employment contract so as to enable an employee to rely on a breach of it as giving rise to a constructive dismissal claim.

Where the actions of an employer amount to a fundamental breach of contract, nothing that the employer does after that point can cure that breach.

An employee dismissed because of the friction caused in the workplace by the way he’d instituted a new health and safety regime had been automatically unfairly dismissed.

An employee dismissed for leaving work and refusing to return because of COVID-19-related concerns was not unfairly dismissed.

An employer’s genuine and rational lack of belief in an employee’s capability can render it not practicable for the employee to be re-engaged following an unfair dismissal.

When considering whether an impairment has a substantial effect on someone’s ability to carry out day-to-day activities, it’s the statutory definition of ‘substantial’ which should be the focus and not the gloss on it provided in the statutory guidance.

For the purposes of equal pay law, two distinct parts of a workforce (here female shop floor workers and higher-paid male distribution centre workers) can compare their pay, even if they are located at different sites, in different parts of the organisation/group, and with very different pay arrangements/management structures.