Contracts of employment
This week's case of the week, provided by DLA Piper, covers varying contracts of employment.
This article looks at some of the important judgments in the area of the transfer of undertakings over the past year.
In Regent Security Services Ltd v Power [2007] EWCA Civ 1188 CA, the Court of Appeal held that an employee transferred under the 1981 TUPE Regulations could choose to enforce new, more beneficial terms agreed with the transferee, even where the variation was connected with the transfer.
In Jackson v Computershare Investor Services plc [2007] EWCA Civ 1065, the Court of Appeal ruled that the provision in the TUPE Regulations to the effect that a transferred contract of employment will have effect after the transfer as if originally made between the employee and the transferee could not be construed so as to give the employee a contractual benefit to which she had not been entitled under her original contract.
The High Court has held that an employee's resignation two days after he had been informed that he was being transferred was a valid objection to the transfer.
In Enfield Technical Services Ltd v Payne; Grace v BF Components Ltd EAT/0644/06, the EAT holds that the contracts of employment were not tainted by illegality because, although the parties had wrongly characterised them as contracts of self-employment, in neither case had the parties misrepresented to the authorities the facts of their relationship.
In Vernon v Event Management Catering Ltd EAT/0161/07 the EAT held that a casual worker who, with the exception of a single two-week break to take a holiday, worked every week for more than three years was an employee and had sufficient continuity of service to claim unfair dismissal. He could demonstrate the existence of a contract of employment in each week during the relevant period and the period of holiday did not break his continuity of employment.
In Wetherill & Ors v Birmingham City Council [2007] EWCA Civ 599 the Court of Appeal held that a local authority was entitled to vary a car allowance scheme unilaterally, but was in breach of contract by failing to provide adequate transitional protection for affected employees.
In Przybylska v Modus Telecom Ltd EAT/0566/06 the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that a tribunal was wrong to imply into a contract a term that the employer could carry out a review of the probationary period within a reasonable time of the expiry of the probationary period.
In Morrish v NTL Group Ltd [2007] CSIH 56 CS, the Court of Session has held that a pay in lieu of notice clause could not be implied into a contract of employment.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to contracts of employment.