End of employment

New and updated

• Type:

  FAQs

  In a redundancy situation, how should an employer select which employees to make redundant?

• Type:

  FAQs

  What should an employer do if an employee at risk of redundancy goes off sick during the consultation process?

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Rejection of relocation proposal was not unreasonable

  If a redundant employee unreasonably rejects an offer of suitable alternative employment, he or she will not be entitled to a statutory redundancy payment. This case is a short and clear example of the factors that a tribunal will weigh up when determining this issue.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Employee unfairly dismissed for smoking at work

  An employer's previous tolerance of misconduct can render a dismissal for that same misconduct unfair, as the employer in this case found to its cost.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Failure to give employee correct duties was a fundamental breach of contract

  A failure by an employer to give an employee correct duties can constitute a fundamental breach of contract, as this case demonstrates.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Case round-up

  Niki Walker, managing associate at Addleshaw Goddard, details the latest rulings.

• Date:

  28 June 2010

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Whistleblowing: Opinion on discretionary redundancy scheme not protected disclosure

  In Goode v Marks & Spencer plc EAT/0442/09, the EAT held that an employment tribunal was right to find that an employee had not been dismissed because of having made a protected disclosure. There had been no qualifying or protected disclosure, but merely an opinion expressed about the employer's proposal for changes to a discretionary enhanced redundancy scheme.

• Type:

  How to

  How to deal with a fixed-term contract that comes to an end

  Practical guidance on dealing with the end of a fixed-term contract, including redundancy as a reason for dismissal; and successive fixed-term contracts.

• Date:

  21 June 2010

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Conditional resignation does not trigger effective date of termination

  The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that the date of a conditional resignation cannot constitute the effective date of termination regardless of any agreement between the employer and employee. 

• Date:

  14 June 2010

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Redundancy: Customer request did not justify failure to consult

  In Shanahan Engineering v Unite the Union EAT/0411/09, the EAT held that an employment tribunal was right to find that, in relation to collective redundancy consultation, although a customer's instruction amounted to "special circumstances", absolving the employer of the need to start consultation 30 days in advance of the first redundancy, it did not absolve it of all obligations to consult. However, the tribunal should have taken into account the special circumstances of the case in setting the level of the protective award.