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Principle of vicarious liability and horseplay

18 January 2022

In the case of Chell v Tarmac Cement and Lime Ltd the Court of Appeal (CA) was asked to consider the question of whether an employer could be held liable for the actions of its employees when engaging in horseplay.  Background The Appellant (C) was employed by Roltec Engineering Ltd (Roltec) as a Site Fitter.  […]

Sexual orientation discrimination: European Court of Human Rights blows out candle on ‘gay cake case’

17 January 2022

It began in May 2014, when gay activist Gareth Lee placed an order for a custom cake with Ashers Baking Company (ABC) in Belfast which featured the slogan ‘support gay marriage’. ABC is owned by a Christian couple who cancelled the order on the grounds that making the cake would ‘contradict their religious belief’ that […]

FDA v the Prime Minister: Union loses battle to hold Priti Patel to account for bullying in parliament

14 January 2022

The FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, has lost a High Court challenge over Boris Johnson’s decision to overrule the findings of his adviser on ministerial standards over Home Secretary Priti Patel’s alleged bullying in Parliament. Members of Parliament are not subject to normal employment laws, but they are held to the standards of […]

Statutory Sick Pay: Self-certification of illness in January 2022

12 January 2022

A temporary regulation means that during the majority of the month of January 2022, employees can effectively carry out self-certification of illness. The Statutory Sick Pay (Medical Evidence) Regulations 2021 (SI 2021/1453) were made in December 2021 and provide that an employee shall not be required by his employer to provide medical evidence in respect […]

Flexible Working Request: agreement by employee to attend appeal hearing did not extend the decision period for the employer.

10 January 2022

In the case of Walsh v Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd, the EAT held that a tribunal had erred in its finding that, by agreeing to attend an appeal hearing, an employee had implicitly agreed to extend the decision period for consideration of his flexible working request. Right to request flexible working Part 8A of the […]

Guidance on Hybrid Home Working

5 January 2022

New guidance on hybrid home working was published in December, in the form of a report commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Personal Development (CIPD) on behalf of the government’s Flexible Working Taskforce. Hybrid working is defined by the report as a form of flexible working where workers spend some of their time working remotely […]

Disability discrimination at work – proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim?

3 January 2022

An employer is legally entitled to disability discrimination at work against an employee if it can show that in doing so there was a “proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim,” as per section 15 of the Equality Act 2010  (“EqA”).  The Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) has recently sent a claim back to the Employment […]

Can Tribunals make decisions without evidence from Employment Tribunal witnesses given at the hearing?

30 December 2021

Yes, held the EAT in the case of Hovis v Louton in a judgment published on 22 November 2021. The Claimant worked for the Respondent as a delivery lorry driver. His manager reported that he and his wife had seen the Claimant smoking at the wheel of his work lorry while driving on the motorway. […]

pregnancy and covid in the workplace

27 December 2021

Just as we thought we were adapting to manage our lives with Covid-19 as a feature, along comes another spanner in the works.  The emergence of the Omicron variant since the end of November has thrown everything up in the air again and businesses, schools and individuals are having to review the appropriate measures to […]