Redundancy
In Safeway Stores plc v Burrell, the EAT rejects both the "contract test" and the "function test" for determining whether an employee was dismissed by reason of redundancy.
An assessment system under which employees were selected for redundancy without individual consultation on the basis of undisclosed marks awarded by their employer gave employees no meaningful opportunity to challenge the decisions made, holds the EAT in John Brown Engineering Ltd v Brown and others.
In Akzo Coatings plc v Thompson and others, the EAT holds that an industrial tribunal erred in law in applying the guidelines on redundancy selection in Williams and others v Compair Maxam Ltd to the way in which an employer dealt with the possibility of alternative employment for redundant employees.
In Quinn and others v Calder Industrial Materials Ltd the EAT upholds an industrial tribunal's ruling that the employer was not in breach of contract by failing to make enhanced redundancy payments to redundant employees.
An "establishment" for the purposes of the EC Collective Redundancies Directive means the unit to which the workers made redundant are assigned to carry out their duties, rules the ECJ in Rockfon A/S v Specialarbejderforbundet i Danmark.
In British Aerospace plc v Green, the Court of Appeal considers the guiding principles for ordering discovery of marked assessment forms in cases where redundant employees claim that they were unfairly selected.
A woman whose absence resulting from IVF treatment was treated as part of her sickness record for redundancy purposes was unlawfully discriminated against on the grounds of sex, rules an Ashford industrial tribunal (Chair: G W Davies) in Robinson v London Borough of Greenwich.
It is a foreseeable consequence of discriminatory treatment that an employee will become upset and demotivated, holds a Birmingham industrial tribunal (Chair: A J McCarry) in Bains v Amber Leisure Ltd, finding that the dismissal of an ethnic minority employee for redundancy was unlawful discrimination even though he had requested it.
An employee who agreed to relocate but later decided not to move was not dismissed by reason of redundancy, but rather because of his intention not to comply with the relocation clause in his contract, holds the EAT in Richardson and another v Applied Imaging International Ltd.
In Duffy v Yeomans & Partners Ltd [1994] IRLR 642 CA, the Court of Appeal held that the Industrial Tribunal had not erred in holding that the employers' failure to consult the appellant employee before dismissing him on grounds of redundancy did not render the dismissal unfair in circumstances in which, on the facts known to the employers at the time the employee was dismissed, consultation would have served no useful purpose, even though the employers had not made a deliberate decision not to consult.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to redundancy.