Unfair dismissal
Providing an employee's prospective employer with a reference that revealed several complaints made about the employee, of which she had been unaware, constituted a breach by her employer of the implied term of trust and confidence in her contract of employment, holds the EAT in TSB Bank plc v Harris.
In Midland Bank plc v Madden, the EAT holds that, while no court short of the Court of Appeal can discard the range or band of reasonable responses test as a determinative test, a tribunal is free to substitute its own views for those of the employer as to the reasonableness of dismissal as a response to the reason shown for it.
The principal reason for the dismissal of a transferor's employees, purportedly on the grounds of redundancy, was the impending transfer of the undertaking, holds the EAT in Kerry Foods Ltd v Creber and others.
In Harvest Press Ltd v McCaffrey [1999] IRLR 778 EAT, the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that if an employee is dismissed after walking out of work because of bullying or harassment by a colleague, he or she may be protected by the health and safety provisions of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and therefore regarded as automatically unfairly dismissed.
In Murray and another v Foyle Meats Ltd, the House of Lords holds that the language of the statutory definition of redundancy asks two questions of fact. The first is whether or not one or other of various states of economic affairs exists, and the second is whether or not the dismissal is attributable, wholly or mainly, to that state of affairs.
Employees who are dismissed by the transferor of an undertaking, and then re-engaged by the transferee on different but agreed terms, are not entitled to retain the benefit of their previous terms of employment, holds the House of Lords in Wilson and others v St Helens Borough Council and Baxendale and Meade v British Fuels Ltd.
In Caledonia Bureau Investment & Property v Caffrey, the EAT holds that the automatically unfair dismissal provision which protects a woman against dismissal for a reason "connected with her pregnancy" is not limited to dismissals occurring during the period of pregnancy and maternity leave.
In Langston v Cranfield University, the EAT rules that an industrial tribunal determining a claim of unfair dismissal by reason of redundancy must consider as a matter of course whether there was unfair selection, lack of consultation or failure to seek alternative employment on the part of the employer.
In Farrant v Woodroffe School, the EAT holds that a dismissal is not necessarily unfair where the reason for it was the employer's genuine but mistaken belief that the employee was refusing to obey an instruction falling within the scope of his contract of employment.
In Goodwin v Cabletel UK Ltd [1997] IRLR 665 EAT, the EAT held that the industrial tribunal had erred in holding that the dismissal of the appellant "designated employee" could not fall within the protection against dismissal for carrying out activities in connection with preventing or reducing risks to health and safety at work provided by the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act because it was the way in which he carried out his health and safety activities, rather than the actual doing of them, which led to his dismissal.
HR and legal information and guidance relating to unfair dismissal.