Employment Law Cases

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Where a worker must be contactable and attend work in a specified response time, he or she will only be working for the purposes of the Working Time Directive if such constraints ‘objectively and very significantly’ affect the worker’s ability to devote that time to his or her own interests.

‘Sleep-in’ residential care workers are only entitled to the National Minimum Wage (NMW) when they are awake and ‘actually working’, not when they are asleep and therefore simply ‘available for work’.

Deciding whether a disclosure attracts protection under whistleblowing law involves looking at the context in which it was made, rather than simply the words used. And it is not necessary for such a disclosure expressly to identify the specific type of wrongdoing alleged on the part of the employer.

An ECJ decision that EU law requires contracts of employment to be split where there is a transfer to multiple transferees applies to ‘service provision changes’ under TUPE.

The removal of a non-executive director from his post after he spoke to the press expressing disapproval for same-sex couple adoption was not discrimination on the grounds of religion.

It was unreasonable for an employer to dismiss an employee for gross misconduct because the employee had installed a camera in his office whilst he was suspended from duty.

A lorry driver was fairly dismissed for refusing to wear a face mask while on a client’s premises but still in his cab.