carrying forward holiday entitlement On 25 July the European decision that employees can take extra holidays to make up for time off sick while on holiday was expanded when it was confirmed by the Court of Appeal that a worker who was unable to take four weeks’ annual leave due to sickness did not have…
As we mentioned in last month’s introduction, the Court of Appeal has confirmed that an employee, unlike a director, does not owe a fiduciary duty to his employer, overturning a High Court decision which had found in favour of the affected employer. A fiduciary duty is the highest standard of care in either equity or…
A forensic accountant who had won an earlier victimisation claim against one of her employers on the basis of an unfair reference has had her appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal struck out because she filed it outside the 42 day time limit for appealing. Whilst she was not a lawyer, the EAT observed that…
Freedman gives us an example of the difference between a person being accepted as self-employed for the purposes of tax and national insurance but in fact being an employee. Dr Freedman operated a business as a sole trader, and in 2009 incorporated it as Career Energy Ltd (CEL). A new company, Career Energy Consultancy Services…
For sad TUPE anoraks, Landsorganisationen i Danmark v Ny Molle Kro and Daddy’s Dance Hall are classic cases, where transfers of leases of a bar and nightclub respectively were found to be transfers of undertakings. LOM Management Ltd v Sweeny (Transfer of Undertakings) [2012] UKEAT was a case where the daughter of tenants of a…
When advising on redundancy procedures, employment lawyers tend to emphasise that employers should take care to ensure that they use objective criteria when selecting from a pool of employees. And very good advice it is too. Mitchells v Tattersall, however, shows that this does not inevitably mean a box ticking exercise is required. Mitchells, the…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an employer and employee cannot agree between them to change the date on which employment is regarded as ending for the purposes of calculating time limits in tribunal cases. This is known as the “EDT” or effective date of termination and is imposed by statute. In cases of…
Croad v UCU is a case concerning a university lecturer with disabilities who sought help from her union to bring a disability discrimination claim against her employers. She became dissatisfied with how they were handling the matter for her and complained. They eventually withdrew from acting for her, for number of reasons, including that she…
Employment tribunal claimants have a tendency to submit lengthy ET1 claims, effectively outlining the whole of their evidence. This can be frustrating for respondents, and, it seems, Employment Judges, because it is necessary to sift through a lengthy document to identify what claims are being made, and what matters of law and fact are in…
BT v Daniels is a useful illustration of the impact of an employer’s size and administrative resources when looking at the fairness of a dismissal. It concerned a BT engineer dismissed for three offences of dishonesty. In the course of the disciplinary proceedings, a report was put forward pointing out that he had a history…