Unfair dismissal

New and updated

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Employee who leapt from crashing truck was fairly dismissed

  In this tribunal decision, the claimant argued that he was unfairly dismissed for taking appropriate steps to protect himself from serious and imminent danger.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Summary dismissal for single safety breach was fair

  In this tribunal decision, an employee's summary dismissal for a single, serious breach of health and safety rules was held to be fair and non-discriminatory.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Drug testing: fair dismissal of employee who tested positive for cannabis

  In DLA Piper's case of the week, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) considered the case of an employee who was dismissed after testing positive for cannabis.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Unfair dismissal: no obligation on employer to follow independent appeal panel

  In DLA Piper's case of the week, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) considered a case in which the employer was found to have fairly dismissed someone despite choosing not to follow the findings of an independent appeal panel.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Case round-up

  Neil Window is a trainee solicitor, Heather Marsh, Carly Mather, Associate and David Rintoul are associate solicitors, and Catherine Barker is managing associate at Addleshaw Goddard LLP. They round up the latest rulings.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Ill-health dismissal: Length of service is not, of itself, automatically relevant in cases of ill-health dismissal

  In BS v Dundee City Council [2014] IRLR 131 CS, the Court of Session found that a tribunal failed to address crucial questions in deciding whether or not an employee had been fairly dismissed for long-term absence and had been wrong to assume that the employee's length of service was a relevant consideration. Long service was relevant only insofar as it could lead to the inference that the employee was a good worker who would return to work as soon as possible.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Whistleblowing: emails to different individuals taken together may amount to a qualifying disclosure

  The Employment Appeal Tribunal agreed with an employment tribunal that emails sent by the claimant taken together were capable of amounting to qualifying disclosures, even though the emails were sent to different individuals in different departments.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Whistleblowing employees fairly dismissed for disclosing concerns to the media

  In this case, a charity fairly dismissed two whistleblowing employees for the manner in which they had raised their concerns.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Case round-up

  Victoria Bell is managing associate and Gerri Hurst, Carly Mather and Andrew Nealey are associates and Eleanor Cittern is a trainee solicitor at Addleshaw Goddard LLP.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Employee tries to withdraw resignation letter written during routine performance appraisal meeting

  Should a hotel have allowed an employee to withdraw a resignation letter that she wrote while agitated during a routine meeting to assess a "mystery-shopper" visit? That was the issue in this employment tribunal.