A customer at a Morrisons supermarket petrol station entered the payment kiosk and asked the employee there whether it would be possible to print some documents from his USB stick. An unusual request, granted, but not in any way hostile or offensive, so the customer would surely have expected from this request no worse an … Continue Reading
Your employee is sick a lot, mostly stress and related issues. Keen to respect your statutory obligations if you have any, you repeatedly ask your external Occupational Health provider if this means he is disabled. You are repeatedly told that he is not, though without any particular depth of enquiry on your part and without … Continue Reading
The trouble with religion, as John Lennon might one day have said, is that it means different things to different people. At one end of any religion will be those for whom their holy book, whatever name it takes, must be complied with to the letter even though it is probably thousands of years old … Continue Reading
“Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer” said boxing great Muhammad Ali, but the Court of Appeal has this month delivered a robust right hook to those trying the same tactic in High Court litigation. It has been the case since Halsey in 2004 that the courts can penalise in costs … Continue Reading
This post is kindly written for us by Lord Justice Underhill of the Court of Appeal. Actually, that’s not entirely (or indeed at all) true. However, while reciting long tracts of Court Judgments is rarely a good way to make friends and influence people, his recent guidance on when enhanced redundancy terms will become contractual … Continue Reading
If you make some horrible error in your treatment of an employee, how far can your addressing it swiftly prevent it becoming a constructive dismissal claim? Two quite similar stories in the law reports shed some light on this. In 2010 the Court of Appeal concluded in Bournemouth University Higher Education Corporation –v- Buckland that … Continue Reading
Ever agonised about just how far you should go when responding to a reference request? Full disclosure and get it off your chest or go for the quiet life and issue yet another bland and useless statement of employment dates and job title? Employers providing a reference owe a duty of care both to the … Continue Reading