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Contracts of employment

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  • Date:
    15 February 1999
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Wrongful dismissal: Compensation for loss of chance to claim unfair dismissal

    Damages for wrongful dismissal may in principle include damages in respect of an employee's loss of the opportunity to bring an unfair dismissal complaint, holds the EAT in Raspin v United News Shops Ltd.

  • Date:
    15 January 1999
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Contracts of employment: Changing terms of relocation loan destroyed mutual trust and confidence

    In French v Barclays Bank plc, the Court of Appeal holds that a detrimental change in the terms on which a bridging loan was made to an employee who had been requested to relocate was a breach of the implied term of his contract of employment that the employer would not act so as to destroy the trust and confidence existing as between the employer and him.

  • Date:
    15 January 1999
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Contracts of employment: Employer was entitled to make long-term sick employee redundant

    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.

  • Date:
    31 December 1998
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Midland Bank plc v McCann

    In Midland Bank plc v McCann (1998) IDS 623 EAT, the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that with regard to a discretionary bonus the employer had not exercised its discretion in such a way that it could be said to be in breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence.

  • Date:
    15 July 1998
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Contracts of employment: Provisions of sickness absence code not contractually binding

    In London Borough of Wandsworth v D'Silva and another, the Court of Appeal holds that provisions of a code of practice on sickness absence which an employer was seeking to amend unilaterally were not contractually binding on that employer.

  • Date:
    1 July 1998
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Contracts of employment: No implied right to send senior dealer on garden leave

    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.

  • Date:
    15 June 1998
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Contracts of employment: Employee entitled to notice pay despite working for competitor

    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.

  • Date:
    15 November 1997
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Contracts of employment: Age discrimination provision did not apply after contractual retirement age

    An employer did not act in fundamental breach of an employee's contract of employment when it required him to retire at the age of 55, in accordance with its retirement policy aimed at achieving a younger workforce, even though the contract incorporated an equal opportunities policy containing an express commitment to offer equal opportunities regardless of age, rules the EAT in Secretary of State for Scotland v Taylor.

  • Date:
    15 October 1997
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Contracts of employment: Implied duty to provide suitable working environment

    An employer's failure to ban smoking in a poorly ventilated workplace, after it became clear that measures already introduced to resolve the problem of passive smoking were inadequate, was in repudiatory breach of an implied contractual term that it would provide and monitor for its employees, so far as reasonably practicable, a working environment which was reasonably suitable for the performance of their contractual duties, holds the EAT in Waltons & Morse v Dorrington.

  • Date:
    1 September 1997
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Jones v F Sirl & Son (Furnishers) Ltd

    In Jones v F Sirl & Son (Furnishers) Ltd [1997] IRLR 493 EAT, the EAT held that in deciding whether an employee left employment in consequence of a fundamental breach of contract by the employer, the industrial tribunal must determine whether the repudiatory breach was "the effective cause" of the resignation. It does not have to be the sole cause.

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HR and legal information and guidance relating to contracts of employment.