Employment Law Cases

A tribunal had incorrectly struck out an employee’s claims for detriments for blowing the whistle under the Employment Rights Act and discrimination/detriments claims under the Equality Act. An organisation, other than the employee’s employer, could potentially be liable under specific sections even without a direct contractual relationship with the employee.

Employee who concealed a previous gross misconduct dismissal on an application form was fairly dismissed.

Employers cannot discipline an employee for manifesting a protected belief because someone else may be offended - unless they have also considered whether the action is both necessary and proportionate.

An employer was not required to consider an employee’s length of service or the possibility of alternative sanctions when dismissing for ‘some other substantial reason’ (SOSR) where the relationship between the parties had irretrievably broken down.

An employee who objected to a TUPE transfer involving a detrimental change in his working conditions was dismissed by the transferor.

An employee’s failure to exhaust the employer’s grievance procedure was not relevant when considering whether the employer’s conduct amounted to a breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence, entitling the employee to resign and claim unfair constructive dismissal.

Pre-termination discussions were inadmissible in an unfair dismissal claim because they constituted a ‘protected conversation’ and were not tainted with impropriety.

Enhanced maternity protection under reg. 10 of the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999 does not apply when no actual vacancy exists.

The Court of Appeal holds that employers do not have to conduct general workforce consultation for an individual redundancy dismissal to be fair. It overturns the EAT decision which suggested that consulting employees individually is not sufficient, even if collective consultation obligations do not apply.

A belief in English nationalism, including anti-Islamic views, is not a protected belief under the Equality Act.

An employer was not entitled to dismiss and offer to re-engage certain of its employees on new terms (fire and rehire) to remove pay protection it had referred to as ‘permanent’. An earlier injunction preventing it from doing so was reinstated.

The possibility of delaying a disabled employee’s dismissal pending a reorganisation was relevant to whether his dismissal was justified.

Consulting with staff on redundancy pools is essential, especially where a pool of one is concerned.

A CEO’s decision to take core responsibilities away from a senior employee and transfer them to others amounted to a repudiatory breach of her employment contract justifying her decision to leave and entitling her to damages.

Although on the facts of this case failure to consider redeployment did not amount to a failure to make reasonable adjustments, the tribunal should have considered the issue of redeployment when deciding the fairness of a dismissal, even though it hadn’t been raised by the claimant.

A volunteer in the Maritime and Coastguard Agency was a worker when undertaking remunerated activities, despite copious references in his documentation to him being a volunteer.

In whistleblowing detriment claims, a tribunal should not look behind the motive of the decision maker to consider whether a third party was manipulating the situation.

The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, which protects workers from detriment for taking part in trade union activities, does not provide protection from detriment for participating in lawful strike action – and this lack of protection is incompatible with the right to strike under art. 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

A whistleblowing claim cannot succeed if the employer doesn’t know at least something about the substance of the protected disclosure that’s been made.

Where a disability places an employee at the substantial disadvantage that they cannot continue in their present job, and are at risk of imminent dismissal, there is no rule of law that it cannot be a reasonable adjustment to give them a trial period in a new role.