The courts have looked at whether an employer can take account of a final warning which is being appealed, at the time a fresh offence and therefore dismissal was being considered. The answer is that an employer can take the final warning into account, even though it was being appealed. The...

In a case published last week, the Court of Appeal had said an employer cannot rely solely on an Occupational Health Report when deciding if an employee is disabled. On the face of it this poses problems for employers - if they cannot rely on a medical report, what can they...

The European Court has ruled on an English case that a worker taking annual leave must be paid the commission he would have earned had he been at work. Therefore, it would now seem that when a worker takes leave, he or she must be compensated not just for basic...

It was announced last night that the House of Lords have rejected the introduction of Employee/Shareholder contracts. These were the contracts whereby employees could swap employment rights for shares. You may remember that we have been critical of the value of this new measure. The measure may be sent back to...

Fatness as a disability has been examined in the Appeal Tribunal this week. Please note the date, it is NOT April 1st. In this case, the employee was considered by any reasonable standard as being obese. The gentleman in question suffered from a number of conditions, including being obese.In the original...

The Whistleblowing laws are getting plenty of attention at present as the government tables a number of changes to the current rules. At present, to gain protection an employee must have raised complaints “in good faith” otherwise they are not entitled to the protection. Last week the government tabled a change...

An important change to the law has been introduced to the Enterprise Bill currently making its way through parliament. In short, the qualifying period for unfair dismissal will not apply if the reason, or main reason, for the dismissal is political opinion. The bill does not make dismissals related to...

An interesting case published today appears to show the appeal tribunal beginning to tire over sensitive employees. The case in question concerns a newsroom, where an employee shouted “What’s happened to the f#cking Pope?” and a Catholic sub editor took offence. The Appeal Tribunal ruled that this was NOT harassment....

An interesting case was published last week relating to disability discrimination (DDA) although more a parable of the importance of a good lawyer.The case involved JP Morgan, who had an employee who was injured while on a skiing holiday and became disabled.He returned to work part time and performed better...