Employment Law Blog - 3/31 - Employment Law Advocates

Bias in grievance proceedings

21-Apr-2011 / James Medhurst / No Comments

In the case of Watson v University of Strathclyde, the Scottish Employment Appeal Tribunal took a very strong line about the appearance of bias in the constitution of a grievance panel by an employer. It held that an employee had been constructively dismissed because the panel hearing her appeal included somebody who had spoken publicly in support of the colleague that she was complaining about. On the face of it, this is a dramatic result with widespread implications. After all, it is not ...

Read & Comment

Duncombe v Secretary of State

08-Apr-2011 / James Medhurst / No Comments

When the Duncombe case was heard in the Employment Appeal Tribunal and the Court of Appeal, the dominant issue was one of territorial jurisdiction, as discussed here. However, in the recent ruling made by the Supreme Court, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families succeeded on a different ground of appeal, concerning the interpretation of the Fixed Term Employees Regulations. It is unlikely that permission to appeal was refused on territorial jurisdiction, as this seemed to be a good opportunity to clarify the ...

Read & Comment

Eversheds v De Belin

/ James Medhurst / No Comments

A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about a case in which a male employee successfully claimed sex discrimination against his employer, a law firm, when it made him redundant ahead of a female colleague who was on maternity leave. There has now been an appeal against that decision which was unsuccessful on the main ground of appeal, although it was successful on a secondary point concerning remedy. The Employment Appeal Tribunal found that the employer could not rely upon "special treatment ...

Read & Comment

No reasonable prospect of success

23-Mar-2011 / James Medhurst / 1 Comment

The Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules allow a claim to be struck out if it has no reasonable prospect of success but, unlike the Civil Procedure Rules, there is no formal procedure for determining whether this provision applies or not and there is little case law dealing with this matter. It is not uncommon for tribunals to proceed by hearing evidence on the substance of the case, making findings of fact and then making a decision on the basis of these findings. An example is the ...

Read & Comment

Competency standards

11-Mar-2011 / James Medhurst / No Comments

The now-repealed Disability Discrimination Act provided that, although there is a duty for qualifications bodies to make reasonable adjustments for disabled applicants, a compentency standard does not count as a provision, criterion or practice for these purposes. The case of Burke v College of Law interprets this part of the statute in a surprising way. The claimant requested extra time for his professional examinations, over and above the 60% that he had already been given. It was held that a requirement that candidates must complete ...

Read & Comment