Employment Law Cases

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.

On a straightforward reading of the relevant regulations, there was no absolute requirement that an employee must have given notice to take parental leave for them to have ‘sought’ to take parental leave.

A tribunal wrongly rejected a claim for automatic unfair dismissal brought by an employee who was dismissed after demanding to be allowed to work from home and be furloughed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A senior employee’s request to work permanently from home was justifiably rejected by her employer, despite the fact that she had successfully been doing so since the start of the pandemic.

Unknown future claims arising under the Equality Act 2010 may be waived in a settlement agreement provided that the types of claims are clearly identified.

The passage of time before an employee resigns will not necessarily by and of itself amount to the employee affirming their contract and therefore losing the right to claim unfair constructive dismissal.

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