In Mohamud v WM Morrison, the Court of Appeal found that an employer was not vicariously liable for its employee’s physical assault on a customer because there was not a sufficiently close connection between the employee’s actions and his employment.
In Olivier v Department for Work and Pensions, the Tribunal found a strong commitment to a political party amounts to as much of a protected belief for the purposes of bringing a discrimination claim as a religious belief.
The Court of Appeal said that the concept that ‘not working on a Sunday is not core to Christian belief’ is irrelevant for Tribunals working out whether a Christian’s belief that she should not be required to work on Sundays for faith reasons should be granted.
The Scottish Courts found that it is potentially reasonable to dismiss a long term absentee employee for ill health even though Occupational Health indicated a potential return within the next couple of months.
In Gallop v Newport City Council, the Court of Appeal found that employers cannot necessarily say they did not know that an employee was disabled even though Occupational Health had diagnosed the employee as not disabled.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has said that agency workers on open ended contracts with companies are not covered by the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 because they are not ‘temporary’.
Parliament has amended the TUPE regulations, which are in force in respect of transfers occurring on or after 31 January 2014.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal found that a council could not rely on a statutory defence to justify an age discrimination claim. Sefton Council paid redundancy payments in accordance with the Civil Service Scheme. This scheme reduced redundancy payments if employees were eligible to draw a pension as it was thought unnecessary to compensate people drawing a pension for loss of a job to the same extent as if they were still in work.
It was widely publicised before Christmas that John McCririck, horse-racing pundit, lost his age discrimination claim against Channel 4. The Tribunal appears to have found that the decision to dismiss Mr McCririck was not age-related but due to his sexist views, unpalatable presenting style and controversial appearances on reality TV shows. That said, the Tribunal judgment stands up poorly under legal scrutiny and the factual basis for the decision is not entirely clear.
In Coppage and another v. Safetynet Security Limited a post-termination restriction purporting to prevent an employee for six months after his employment ended from soliciting all customers of the business during his employment was reasonable, and therefore enforceable, despite not being limited to those who were customers for a limited period of time before termination and with whom he had contact.
In JM Finn & Co v Holliday, the High Court granted an injunction to keep an employee on garden leave for his 12 month notice period. They rejected the suggestion that not sending an employee market information whilst on garden leave was a breach of contract. Whilst 12 months is a long period, the fact that the employee had received a three fold salary increase when agreeing to a 12 month notice period was relevant.
