Rowstock Ltd and another v Jessemey and another

Employment Unfair dismissal. The Employment Appeal Tribunal (the EAT) allowed the appeal of the employer against the failure of the employment tribunal (the tribunal) to make any deduction in the compensation awarded to reflect the likelihood of the employee, who had been dismissed one year after he had turned 65, being fairly dismissed had the correct procedures been followed. The employee cross-appealed from the rejection of the victimisation claim and the Equality and Human Rights Commission intervened in support of the crossappeal. The EAT held that the judgment of the tribunal in rejecting the employee's post-employment victimisation case would be upheld and his appeal (actually pursued by way of a cross-appeal) on that point would be dismissed.

Kenny and others v Ministry for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and others

Employment Equality of treatment of men and women. The Court of Justice of the European Union made a preliminary ruling concerning the interpretation of art 141 EC Treaty and Council Directive (EEC) 75-117 (on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the application of the principle of equal pay for men and women) in proceedings between Margaret Kenny and 13 other civil servants, on the one hand, and the Irish Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and others concerning a difference in pay between the employees in the main proceedings and another group of civil servants.

*Davies v Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council

Unfair dismissal Determination whether dismissal fair or unfair. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that, in determining whether an employer had been entitled to rely on a final written warning given to an employee in earlier disciplinary proceedings, the broad test, as laid down by s98(4) of the was whether, in the particular case, it was reasonable for the employer to treat the conduct reason, taken together with the circumstances of the final written warning, as sufficient to dismiss the employee. It was not the function of the employment tribunal to re-open the final warning and rule on an issue raised by the employee as to whether the final warning should, or should not, have been issued and whether it was a legally valid warning or a nullity.

Biluan and another v Mental Health Care (UK) Ltd

Redundancy Employees working at residential home for persons with mental disabilities. The employees worked at a residential home for persons with mental disabilities. After they were made redundant, they brought a claim for unfair dismissal. The employment tribunal held that the employees had been unfairly dismissed because they had been assessed on criteria designed for use in a recruitment context and no account had been taken of their past performance. The Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed the employer's appeal, having found that although some of the tribunal's reasons had been flawed, its primary reason had been one that had been open to it.

A v B

Employment Unfair dismissal. The Employment Appeal Tribunal found that the employment tribunal had been correct to give permission to the employer to rely on the employee's spent conviction at the hearing for the latter's claims for unfair dismissal and race discrimination as it had applied the correct legal test for determining the relevance of the evidence.

Martin v Carphone Warehouse Ltd

Employment Disability. The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) allowed the appeal of Carphone Warehouse Ltd (the employer) on two grounds of disability discrimination but dismissed their appeal on the issue of constructive dismissal.The employee, a branch manager had had a history of psychiatric problems. However when a new regional manager was appointed, the employee, who felt under pressure, was suspended for twelve months. The EAT held that it had been obvious that the employee had been constructively dismissed and that that constructive dismissal had been unfair.

Kefil v JJ Food Service Ltd

Employment Unfair dismissal. The Employment Appeal Tribunal found that the employment tribunal, in upholding the employee's claim for unfair dismissal, had neither fallen into the error of substituting its own decision for that of the employer, nor had its judgment been perverse.

Turner v South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Employment Disability. The Employment Appeal Tribunal held that the employment tribunal had not erred, though in its reasoning it could have been more precise, in finding that the employee had failed to show to the requisite standard that she had been disabled during her period of employment with the employer.

O'Brien v Haringey London Borough Council

Employment Sick leave. The Employment Appeal Tribunal found that the employment tribunal had erred in rejecting the employee's sick pay claim after she had contracted an illness whilst visiting, during her holiday, a school in the Gambia with which her own school had wanted to foster links, on the basis that the employee's activities in the Gambian school had been undertaken in the course of her employment.

*International Energy Group Ltd v Zurich Insurance Plc UK

Insurance Indemnity insurance. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that a judge had been wrong to find that the defendant insurer's liability to the claimant insured under an employer's liability policy had restricted the indemnity that the claimant could claim under the policy for damages paid to an employee who had contracted mesothelioma by proportioning the period of the employee's period of work with the claimant to the period under which the claimant had been insured with the defendant. If an employer was liable to his employee for his employee's mesothelioma following a tortious exposure to asbestos created during an insurance period, then, for the purposes of the insuring clause in the employer's liability policy, the disease was 'caused' within the insurance period.