End of employment
In Francisco HernandezVidal SA v Gomez Perez and others [1999] IRLR 132 ECJ, the European Court of Justice held that, for the purposes of EC Business Transfers Directive 77/187, an organised grouping of wage earners who are specifically and permanently assigned to a common task may, in the absence of other factors of production, amount to an economic entity.
In Hill v General Accident Fire and Life Assurance Corporation plc, the Outer House of the Court of Session holds that there was no breach of the implied duty of mutual trust and confidence when an employer made an employee redundant while he was in receipt of contractual sick pay and had a prospective contractual entitlement to long-term sickness benefit.
Employees who are dismissed by the transferor of an undertaking, and then re-engaged by the transferee on different but agreed terms, are not entitled to retain the benefit of their previous terms of employment, holds the House of Lords in Wilson and others v St Helens Borough Council and Baxendale and Meade v British Fuels Ltd.
In the absence of an express contractual term entitling a bookmaker to send the senior dealer in its spread-betting business on garden leave, it was under an obligation to allow him to perform the duties of the post to which it had appointed him in accordance with his contract both during his notice period and before he gave in his notice, holds the Court of Appeal in William Hill Organisation Ltd v Tucker.
An employee's contract of employment continued after an exchange of letters between the employee, giving one month's notice of termination, and her employer, confirming that it did not want her to work out her notice period and that her salary would be paid in lieu at the end of the notice period, holds the Court of Appeal in Hutchings v Coinseed Ltd.
In Caledonia Bureau Investment & Property v Caffrey, the EAT holds that the automatically unfair dismissal provision which protects a woman against dismissal for a reason "connected with her pregnancy" is not limited to dismissals occurring during the period of pregnancy and maternity leave.
In Langston v Cranfield University, the EAT rules that an industrial tribunal determining a claim of unfair dismissal by reason of redundancy must consider as a matter of course whether there was unfair selection, lack of consultation or failure to seek alternative employment on the part of the employer.
In Jones v Mid-Glamorgan County Council, the Court of Appeal upholds an industrial tribunal's finding that an individual's employment terminated by agreement through a genuine voluntary retirement rather than by dismissal.
In Farrant v Woodroffe School, the EAT holds that a dismissal is not necessarily unfair where the reason for it was the employer's genuine but mistaken belief that the employee was refusing to obey an instruction falling within the scope of his contract of employment.
In Goodwin v Cabletel UK Ltd [1997] IRLR 665 EAT, the EAT held that the industrial tribunal had erred in holding that the dismissal of the appellant "designated employee" could not fall within the protection against dismissal for carrying out activities in connection with preventing or reducing risks to health and safety at work provided by the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act because it was the way in which he carried out his health and safety activities, rather than the actual doing of them, which led to his dismissal.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to the end of employment.