Employment disputes
In HM Prison Service v Salmon, the EAT upholds an award of £20,000 for injury to feelings, including £5,000 aggravated damages, and a separate, undiscounted award of £15,000 for psychiatric injury, made by an employment tribunal that had partially upheld a former prison officer's complaint of unlawful sex discrimination.
There is no common law contractual remedy for financial or other loss allegedly flowing from the manner or circumstances of an employee's dismissal, holds the House of Lords in Johnson v Unisys Ltd.
In Abbey National plc v Formoso, the EAT rejects an employment tribunal's "reasonable employer" approach to calculating the financial loss flowing from a discriminatory dismissal.
A compromise to settle an employee's claim for compensation for unfair dismissal, reached during the employment tribunal proceedings and recorded by the tribunal in a document headed "Decision of the [employment] tribunal", did not prevent the employee from subsequently bringing proceedings in the county court for unpaid wages, holds the Court of Appeal in Dattani v Trio Supermarkets Ltd.
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).
In R v Secretary of State for Employment ex parte Seymour-Smith and Perez (13 March 1997) EOR73A, the House of Lords refers questions to the European Court of Justice relating to whether the increase in the qualifying period for bringing a complaint of unfair dismissal from one to two years indirectly discriminated against women contrary to European Community law.
In HM Prison Service and others v Johnson, the EAT upholds an award of £21,000 for injury to feelings made by an industrial tribunal to a black prison officer who was subjected to a prolonged campaign of racial harassment and discrimination.
In Digital Equipment Co Ltd v Clements (No.2), the EAT holds that, in calculating the compensatory award for unfair dismissal, any termination payment the employee received from the employer should be deducted from his or her loss caused by the dismissal before reducing that net loss by the percentage chance, if any, that he or she would have been retained had the employer acted fairly.
In Selkent Bus Co Ltd t/a Stagecoach Selkent v Moore [1996] IRLR 661 EAT, the EAT set out guidance to industrial tribunals on the criteria to take into account in deciding whether to grant leave for amendment of an originating application.
In Waters v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (14 February 1995) EOR64B, the EAT rules that an employer could not be not liable for victimising an employee who alleged that she was sexually harassed by a work colleague, where the alleged harassment was not committed in the course of employment.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to employment disputes.