Employment case law round up

Latest decisions added to the Tribunals Service website.

01 September, 2010

New employment tribunal decisions and summaries published to the Tribunals Service website -

Appeal allowed. Employment Tribunal wrongly substituted its views for those of employer as to reasonableness of dismissal.

The Employment Tribunal made two mistakes of fact which made the Judgment perverse. It could not be said to be unarguably right, and so was remitted to a different Employment Tribunal.

The right under Employment Rights Act 1996 s1 to written particulars does not apply to the Claimant as she was employed before 30 November 1993, and so an award under Employment Act 2002 s38 was set aside.

No exceptional reasons were given by an Appellant for his late submission of a fresh Notice of Appeal under rule 3(8). He failed properly to prioritise this with his other affairs relating to the United Nations and his law degree. Although the Respondent conceded the Registrar erred in law, her decision not to allow the Notice of Appeal out of time was correct.

The Tribunal did not err in law in concluding that in the age discrimination claim the burden of proof passed to the Appellant nor that the Respondent had failed to discharge it. In making a protective award, the Tribunal did not err in law in not including a discretionary bonus scheme as part of a week’s pay where the date for paying or considering whether to pay such a bonus had not yet occurred.

Regulation 10(3)(a) and Regulation 10(3)(b) of the Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations 1999 must be read together in determining whether there is a suitable available vacancy under Regulation 10(2).

In considering the likely duration of an impairment the Employment Judge misconstrued the meaning of “likely” and wrongly regarded as determinative the availability of potentially effective treatment, whereas that should only have been considered as one of the relevant factors to be considered.

An Employment Tribunal assessing loss under s123 Employment Rights Act 1996 did not err when it did not take account of the employer’s ability to pay, a matter outside the section.

  • UKEAT/0518/09 - Unfair Dismissal - Automatically unfair reasons

1. Tribunal in error in holding that a letter inviting an employee to a meeting and enclosing a police report and witness statement did not comply with Step 1.

2. Tribunal correct in finding that dismissal was unfair when the police employers had held a Convictions Board to deal with dismissal although the employer had not received a conviction or warning but only accepted a fixed penalty notice.

An Employment Tribunal did not err in dismissing claims of race discrimination and unfair dismissal following a full investigation of allegations of abuse by nursing staff.

  • UKEAT/0286/09 - Disability Discrimination - Disability related discrimination

The Employment Tribunal found that the Claimant, an Executive Director in Structured Credit and Sales, had not suffered disability related discrimination under s3A(1) of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act, by reason of the fact that his disability limited his working hours and prevented him from widening his client base, when he was paid a lower bonus than appropriate and unfairly dismissed. The Employment Tribunal found that if a person in the employee’s position had not been able to do the full hours and was limited to similar hours to the Claimant, that person would also have been dismissed where they had not sufficiently widened their client base. Nevertheless and despite that finding the Employment Tribunal appears to have found that those facts gave rise to a claim for direct discrimination under s3A(5) of the Act. The case was remitted to the Employment Tribunal to determine whether or not there were additional grounds for finding that the Claimant had suffered direct discrimination.


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