Jon HalesWe are pleased to introduce into FIN a series of monthly updates from our employment team. This post looks at a few interesting cases.
De Bank Haycocks v ADP RPO UK Ltd [2024] EWCA Civ 1291
The Court of Appeal had to decide whether there’s a requirement for general workforce consultation in individual redundancies. The Court held that the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) had been wrong to conclude that good industrial relations practice requires an employer to conduct general workforce consultation in order for an individual redundancy dismissal to be fair. The Court confirmed that whether a consultation process is fair must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, and consultation must take place when the redundancy proposals are at a formative stage, ie where it can make a difference to the outcome.
Zagorski v North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust [2024] EAT 164
The main issue here was whether an employee who suffered from regular migraines was disabled for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. A second issue was whether the employment tribunal (ET) had been correct to conclude that the employee could have been expected to modify his behaviour to prevent or reduce the effects of his impairment. The EAT decided that, in this case, the employee’s migraines did meet the definition of a disability under the Equality Act. He could not reasonably have been expected to modify his behaviour to prevent or reduce the effects of his impairment.
Carozzi v University of Hertfordshire and another [2024] EAT 169
In an interesting case, the EAT considered if comments about an employee’s accent could be related to her race for the purposes of a harassment claim. Secondly, could the employer’s refusal to disclose meeting notes due to a concern that the employee might use them to support a discrimination claim constitute victimisation? According to the EAT, comments about the employee’s accent could be related to her race and therefore could amount to harassment. The EAT held that the ET had incorrectly applied the legal test for victimisation and sent the case back to a different ET to consider.
Gallagher v McKinnon’s Auto and Tyres Ltd [2024] EAT 174
Was the employer’s behaviour during a pre-termination negotiation “improper” under the Employment Rights Act 1996? If so, evidence of the negotiation would be admissible in the employee’s unfair dismissal claim. The EAT said that the negotiation constituted a protected conversation under the Employment Rights Act. It was not tainted with impropriety so evidence of it was not admissible in the unfair dismissal claim.