A bus driver has been awarded nearly £84,000 after his employer failed to investigate his claim that traces of cocaine picked up on a mouth swab during a drug test were the result of contamination on his hands from passengers' banknotes.
An employer that dismissed drivers over 67 after claiming that its insurance provider would not insure them has admitted liability for age discrimination and unfair dismissal midway through the drivers' case and has been ordered to pay over £700,000 to 20 drivers.
David Malamatenios is a partner, Linda Quinn and Krishna Santra senior associates and Melissa Powys-Rodrigues and Dominic Speedie associates at Colman Coyle Solicitors. They round up the latest rulings.
A tribunal award of nearly £15,000 was the result of this employer's multiple failures when dismissing a Portuguese care worker with a poor grasp of English for the use of a single inappropriate word in the presence of a member of the public.
This Polish claimant was awarded £7,000 after being criticised by a colleague for speaking her native language in the workplace, in a good example of the language issues that can arise in a multinational workplace.
This employer's laissez-faire approach to the carry-over of holiday into subsequent annual leave years resulted in an employment tribunal ordering it to pay an employee £4,272 in holiday pay when she was made redundant.
This employment tribunal punished a large employer's failure to follow the "Acas code of practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures" by awarding a combined total of over £100,000 to two claimants who were unfairly dismissed.
In DLA Piper's case of the week, Lund v St Edmund's School, Canterbury, the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that the Acas code of practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures should have been followed in a case where the reason for dismissal was stated to be for "some other substantial reason" (SOSR), but disciplinary proceedings ought to have been invoked.
Amanda Steadman is a professional support lawyer, and Joe Beeston, Laura Garner, Helen Samuel and Dinu Suntook are associates at Addleshaw Goddard LLP. They round up the latest rulings.