End of employment
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that an employer fairly dismissed an employee when a client refused to have him carry out work for it.
In Central & North West London NHS Foundation Trust v Abimbola EAT/0542/08, the EAT held that the employment tribunal had wrongly excluded highly relevant factors from its consideration of whether or not it was practicable to order reinstatement following a finding of unfair dismissal.
In Sehmi v Gate Gourmet London Ltd; Sandhu and others v Gate Gourmet London Ltd EAT/0264/08 & EAT/0265/08, the EAT held that, while the withdrawal by an employee of his or her labour will not necessarily justify dismissal, in a situation where large numbers of employees deliberately absent themselves from work in a manner that is liable to do serious damage to the employer's business, dismissal of those taking part in the action will be reasonable, even where the absence is not prolonged.
In HM Revenue and Customs v Stringer and others sub nom Commissioners of Inland Revenue v Ainsworth and others [2009] IRLR 677 HL, the House of Lords held that a claim for unpaid holiday due under the Working Time Regulations 1998 can be brought as an unlawful deductions from wages claim under ss.13 and 23 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
In Bournemouth University Higher Education Corporation v Buckland EAT/0492/08, the EAT held that the well-established contractual test for determining whether or not constructive dismissal has occurred should not be embellished by the introduction of the range of reasonable responses test, a concept that is properly confined to the law of unfair dismissal. In doing so, it declined to follow the EAT decisions in Abbey National plc v Fairbrother and Claridge v Daler Rowney Ltd.
In Rolls-Royce plc v Unite [2009] EWCA Civ 387 CA, the Court of Appeal held that a redundancy selection matrix set out in a 2003 collective agreement was not automatically rendered unlawful following the implementation of the age discrimination legislation in 2006.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that an employer did not unfairly dismiss an employee when it failed to investigate in detail the nature of his misconduct in circumstances where he had admitted his guilt.
In Kirklees Metropolitan Council v Radecki [2009] IRLR 555 CA, the Court of Appeal held that the contract of an employee with whom the employer was negotiating a compromise agreement terminated on the date that the employer stopped paying the employee, even though at that point the draft agreement had not been executed by the parties.
In Schultz-Hoff v Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund; Stringer and others v Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs Cases C-350/06 and C-520/06 ECJ, the ECJ has held that the Working Time Directive allows member states to prevent workers from taking annual leave during periods of sickness, provided that they are permitted to take it at some other time. If sickness prevents a worker from taking his or her annual leave entitlement, it must be carried over into the next leave year. Workers whose employment is terminated cannot have their payment in lieu of annual leave reduced on account of a period of sickness prior to the dismissal.
The European Court of Justice has held that the UK legislation permitting employers to dismiss employees aged 65 or over if the reason for dismissal is retirement can, in principle, be justified under the Framework Directive.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to the end of employment.