The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that, in the context of costs applications, it is unreasonable behaviour for a claimant to pursue an unfair dismissal claim purely for the purpose of obtaining a declaration that he or she was unfairly dismissed.
This case deals with a common issue in redundancy situations: the discounting of disability-related absences when scoring against a "sickness absence" criterion.
If a redundant employee unreasonably rejects an offer of suitable alternative employment, he or she will not be entitled to a statutory redundancy payment. This case is a short and clear example of the factors that a tribunal will weigh up when determining this issue.
In Goode v Marks & Spencer plc EAT/0442/09, the EAT held that an employment tribunal was right to find that an employee had not been dismissed because of having made a protected disclosure. There had been no qualifying or protected disclosure, but merely an opinion expressed about the employer's proposal for changes to a discretionary enhanced redundancy scheme.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that the date of a conditional resignation cannot constitute the effective date of termination regardless of any agreement between the employer and employee.