November 2009 Archives - Employment Law Advocates

Christmas and New Year Office Closure

01-Dec-2011 / Employment Law Advocates / Comments Off

Our office will be closing for the holiday period at 12.00pm on Friday 23rd December 2011 and will reopen again until 10.00am on Tuesday 3rd January 2012. Advocates will be mostly unavailable but may have intermittent access to email or telephone during this period. If you are an existing client, please contact your Advocate directly by email or telephone. If you are a new client or are seeking advice, please email info@employmentlawadvocates.com or complete the enquiry form on our Contact Us page ...

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Religious discrimination

30-Nov-2009 / James Medhurst / No Comments

The¬†judgment of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in¬†McFarlane v Relate Avon¬†is another in a long line of authorities in which¬†discrimination on the grounds of religion and sexual orientation have appeared to come into conflict. In such cases, there is often unhelpful talk about one set of rights 'trumping' another but this¬†just misses the point.¬†In McFarlane, Justice Underhill followed the¬†decision¬†of¬†his predecessor as President,¬†Justice Elias, in London Borough of¬†Islington v Ladele and was undoubtedly correct to do so. The reason why 'trumping' is the ...

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Penalty clauses

29-Nov-2009 / James Medhurst / No Comments

The¬†Employment Appeal Tribunal decision¬†in Yorkshire Maintenance Company v Farr¬†concerned penalty clauses in employment contracts, an area of law¬†in which there are surprisingly few authorities. The respondent had attempted to rely upon¬†a clause stating that wages could be deducted in the event that timesheets were not signed by the client. The tribunal¬†did not accept¬†this, not expressly because¬†the clause¬†was a penalty, but because¬†it was held to require¬†timely deductions and so the right¬†to do so had lapsed. Judge Pugsley¬†rejected this approach and felt ...

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Trade union detriment

26-Nov-2009 / James Medhurst / No Comments

An article in the Guardian reports on a fascinating case¬†which began¬†at the Manchester Employment Tribunal earlier¬†in the¬†week. It represents part of the fallout from the¬†construction industry¬†blacklist which I discussed in this post. Now many of the people affected (twenty three¬†of them) have brought claims against the companies who put their names on the list in the first place. As I said at the time, there is no obvious remedy in employment law but there¬†are some interesting¬†submissions¬†to be made. Paragraph 355.02 of ...

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Reasonable adjustments

22-Nov-2009 / James Medhurst / No Comments

The¬†Court of Appeal¬†decision¬†in Royal Bank of Scotland v Allen concerns the provision of goods and services under the Disability Discrimination Act.¬†The case¬†turned largely on its facts and was decided using the existing¬†authorities about the¬†meaning of a 'reasonable alternative method' of providing¬†the service. However, there was one point which could later become relevant in an employment context. Section 21(2) of the Act says that a service provider must take such steps,¬†by way of adjustments,¬†as it is reasonable "for him to have to ...

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Causation?

20-Nov-2009 / James Medhurst / No Comments

The¬†decision in¬†Orr v Milton Keynes Council¬†gets to the heart of¬†a very difficult area¬†of¬†discrimination law, usually described as causation, but this is itself a problematic term, as the¬†case demonstrates. The claimant suffered harassment for which his employer was vicariously liable, but was dismissed fairly¬†for his rude and abusive response to it. It was held that the dismissal was not tainted by discrimination notwithstanding the racist provocation because a white employee would also have been dismissed for a comparable act of misconduct. ...

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