The Court of Appeal gives important guidance on how far tribunals need to go in exploring the circumstances of a claim. Plus cases on protected disclosure, redundancy selection, discrimination by an agent, working time exemptions and constructive dismissal.
The Court of Appeal holds in Shawkat v Nottingham City Hospital NHS Trust that an employment tribunal was entitled to its conclusion that a reorganisation of the employee's duties to require him to carry out different work in part of his time, while it amounted to the imposition of unreasonable duties upon him which he had reasonably declined to carry out, did not mean that he was redundant.
In Middlesbrough Borough Council v Transport and General Workers' Union and another, the EAT upholds an employment tribunal's finding of fact that an employer failed to consult representatives of two trade unions that it recognised, in respect of more than 100 employees whom it was proposing to make redundant within 90 days, about ways of avoiding the dismissals.
In Cox v Sun Alliance Life Ltd, the Court of Appeal holds that an employer was, through one of its employees, in breach of its duty to take reasonable care to provide an accurate and fair reference for a former employee, who resigned before the employer had completed pending disciplinary proceedings involving investigations into allegations of misconduct.
An employee who was summarily and wrongfully dismissed 12 days before his 55th birthday, albeit with 12 weeks' pay in lieu of notice, was in principle entitled to claim damages made up of the amount that he would have been paid but for the employer's repudiatory breach of his contract of employment, holds the Court of Appeal in Silvey v Pendragon plc.