Employment Law Cases

‘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.

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.

A decision to dismiss based on tainted information given by a line manager to the dismissing manager could not make the dismissal discriminatory unless the dismissing manager was motivated by the relevant protected characteristic (here pregnancy).

When calculating pay for accrued but untaken statutory holiday at the end of employment under the Working Time Regulations, an employment contract (or other agreement) cannot stipulate a formula for calculating that holiday pay which would result in a worker being paid less than the usual amount they would have been paid for working.

An employee made redundant in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic was unfairly dismissed because her employer hadn’t considered furloughing her as an alternative to redundancy.

An employee’s furlough pay can be calculated in accordance with the terms agreed upon by the employer and employee through a variation in the employee’s contractual terms. The formula set out in the Treasury Directions governing the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) was not mandatory for employers to use and did not supersede existing employment law rights and obligations.

A congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses was not vicariously liable for the rape of a member of its congregation by a former elder. While the relationship between the elder was akin to employment, the rape was not so closely connected with what the elder was authorised to do that it could fairly and properly be regarded as committed by him while acting in the course of his quasi-employment.

A letter amounted to an effective letter of termination for the purposes of an unfair dismissal claim, despite the letter being marked ‘without prejudice.’

The High Court has refused to strike out a claim for misuse of private information which was brought by an employee against her former employer. In so doing, the court considered the extent to which there can be a reasonable expectation of privacy in private WhatsApp messages that had been found at work.

A disabled employee’s dismissal was not discrimination arising from a disability because it was a proportionate means of achieving the employer’s legitimate aim of maintaining good staff attendance.

It was not unfair to dismiss an employee after reopening a previously concluded disciplinary process that had led to a final written warning.

A director who was dismissed while divorcing her husband, a director at the same company, was not subjected to marital discrimination.

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

An ex-employee’s victimisation claim was covered by a COT3 settlement agreement because of the precise wording used.

It was not a reasonable adjustment simply to slot a disabled employee into a new structure as part of a redundancy exercise.

A successful appeal against a dismissal will automatically result in reinstatement back into employment unless the employee objectively and unequivocally withdraws their appeal against dismissal before the appeal is decided. This remains the case even where the employee expressly says to the appeal decision maker that they do not want to return to work.

An employer acted unfairly when it did not consult on redundancy selection criteria, where the sole selection criteria inevitably led to a redundancy pool of one.

A barristers’ chambers discriminated against a barrister due to her protected belief that a woman is defined by her sex (a ‘gender critical’ belief).

An employee was not automatically unfairly dismissed after making protected disclosures because her dismissal was for conduct reasons that were separable from the disclosures themselves.

An employee was fairly dismissed for failing to disclose his bankruptcy, despite the absence of an express contractual requirement or policy requiring him to do so.