Contracts of employment
An employer did not act in fundamental breach of an employee's contract of employment when it required him to retire at the age of 55, in accordance with its retirement policy aimed at achieving a younger workforce, even though the contract incorporated an equal opportunities policy containing an express commitment to offer equal opportunities regardless of age, rules the EAT in Secretary of State for Scotland v Taylor.
An employer's failure to ban smoking in a poorly ventilated workplace, after it became clear that measures already introduced to resolve the problem of passive smoking were inadequate, was in repudiatory breach of an implied contractual term that it would provide and monitor for its employees, so far as reasonably practicable, a working environment which was reasonably suitable for the performance of their contractual duties, holds the EAT in Waltons & Morse v Dorrington.
In Jones v F Sirl & Son (Furnishers) Ltd [1997] IRLR 493 EAT, the EAT held that in deciding whether an employee left employment in consequence of a fundamental breach of contract by the employer, the industrial tribunal must determine whether the repudiatory breach was "the effective cause" of the resignation. It does not have to be the sole cause.
In (1) Wilson and others v St Helens Borough Council (2) Meade and another v British Fuels Ltd, the Court of Appeal considers the position under the Transfer of Undertakings Regulations where employees' contracts of employment are terminated on a relevant transfer and they accept employment with the transferee on less favourable terms and conditions.
In principle, employees can recover "stigma" damages in respect of their reasonably foreseeable loss of employment prospects resulting from their employer's breach of the implied term of trust and confidence, holds the House of Lords in Malik and another v Bank of Credit and Commerce International SA (in compulsory liquidation).
A deputy headteacher's verbal assurances that a teacher's temporary promotion would be made permanent had no contractually binding effect, holds the EAT in Puntis v The Governing Body of Isambard Brunel Junior School.
In Sarker v South Tees Acute Hospitals NHS Trust the EAT holds that an industrial tribunal had jurisdiction to hear a breach of contract claim brought by an employee whose contract of employment was terminated by the employer before the date on which she was due to start work.
An employee who was dismissed without notice in breach of his contract of employment was released from the further performance of that contract and so was not bound by his contractual obligation to repay relocation expenses received from his employer, holds the EAT in Pearce v Roy T Ward (Consultants) Ltd.
The service contract of a company chief executive imposed a contractual obligation on his employer to review and provide an annual upward adjustment in salary, holds the High Court in Clark v BET plc and another.
In Christian Salvesen Food Services Ltd v Ali and others, the Court of Appeal considers an "annualised hours" contract, deriving from a collective agreement, under which employees were paid a standard wage for a notional 40-hour week, but overtime became payable only after 1,824 hours had been worked in a 12-month period.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to contracts of employment.