Obesity does not, of itself, render someone disabled and trigger a duty to make reasonable adjustments on the part of an employer. However, if as a result of someone’s obesity there are substantial and long term effects on an employees’ ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities (such as lack of mobility) this could mean that an employee is deemed “disabled” pursuant to the Equality Act legislation.
What is interesting about this case – HMRC v Whiteley – is not the judgement but the guidance given by the Employment Appeal Tribunal relating to disabled employees who exceed the number of days permitted under a sickness absence policy.
The ACAS guide on settlement agreements recommends that employers allow employees a minimum of 10 calendar days to consider a settlement agreement and to receive legal advice. That is a lot longer than many employers would want to give staff, so the question is can this guidance be ignored?
In July 2013, the European Court of Justice in Herron v Parkwood Leisure held that employees who TUPE transfer to a new organisation cannot benefit from collectively agreed terms where such terms are agreed after the date of the transfer and where the new employer is not a party to those collective negotiations.
In Whitmar Publications Ltd v Gamage, the High Court issued an injunction ordering three ex-employees to hand over, to their former employer, the ‘access, management and control’ of LinkedIn groups they had set up on its behalf.
The High Court found that a settlement letter from an employer to an employee and the employee’s subsequent letter of acceptance amounted to a binding settlement agreement. This automatically prevented any further negotiations. If the employer had intended the settlement letter to be a springboard to further discussions, it should have headed the settlement offer ‘subject to contract’.
As reported in our last bulletin, the Employment Appeal Tribunal found that where an employer proposes 20 or more redundancies across its organisation within a 90 day period, it will have collective consultation obligations even if the number of employees proposed for redundancy at each of its sites is fewer than 20. This decision has been appealed by the Government and will likely go to the Court of Appeal.
UNISON, one of the UK’s largest trade unions, has successfully applied (on the second attempt) to the High Court for a judicial review into whether employment tribunal fees are legal. The hearing will take place in October…
Under EU law workers are entitled to 4 weeks holiday per year (including bank holidays). UK law requires employees to be given a further 1.6 weeks holiday per year which amounts to 5.6 weeks a year including bank holidays to equate to the previous UK norm of employers paying for 4 weeks holiday per year plus bank holidays.
In Black v Wilkinson, Mrs Wilkinson, a Christian, ran a B&B from her family home. Her policy provided that only heterosexual married couples were allowed to share a room and so in March 2010, she refused to accommodate a homosexual couple.
In Patel v Lloyds Pharmacy Ltd, the Employment Appeal Tribunal struck out Mr Patel’s claim for direct disability discrimination because there was no evidence that the manager accused of discrimination was aware of his disability.
A shareholder of a Romanian football club commented to a journalist that he would prefer to close the football club than hire a homosexual player, in response to the suggestion that a player who was due to transfer to the club was homosexual.
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