R (Forge Care Homes) -v- Cardiff& Vale University Health Board [2016] EWCA Civ 26 – (Funding in Care Homes)

By writing to an employee while she was on sick leave for work-related stress, raising concerns with her employment that were neither serious nor urgent, an employer acted in repudiatory breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence, and the employee had been constructively dismissed.

The wait is over. On 4 May 2016, the General Data Protection Regulation ('the Regulation') was published in the Official Journal of the European Union. Every organisation, both within and outside the European Union ('EU'), controlling and/or processing EU citizens’ personal data must ensure they comply with the provisions of the Regulation by 25 May 2018.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that disciplinary action against an employee for improperly promoting Christianity to a junior colleague was not unlawful religious discrimination.

The Supreme Court held that WM Morrisons Supermarkets was vicariously liable for an employee’s violent assault on a customer. There was a ‘sufficiently close connection' between the employee’s job (attending to customers) and the assault on the customer.

The national living wage was introduced on 1 April in respect of workers aged 25 and over, it amounts to an extra 50p per hour for qualifying workers.

There is no age discrimination where there is refusal to extend permanent health insurance (PHI) cover beyond the age of 60. 

The Court of Appeal had held that the High Court was entitled to increase the level of commission awarded to a sales person by an employer, and did not fail to have regard to the employer’s discretion in the matter. 

The Employment Appeals Tribunal has held that childcare vouchers provided under a salary sacrifice scheme are part of an employee’s ‘remuneration’ under Regulation 9 of the Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations. 

Previously the EAT held that to be a protected disclosure, the disclosure must involve information and not simply voice a concern or raise an allegation. In Kilraine -v- London Borough of Wandsworth however, the EAT noted that the legislation does not distinguish between information and an allegation, and the question is one of does it disclose information. In practise these are often intertwined. 

The Court of Appeal held that an absence management policy was incorporated into the employees’ contract of employment.

International law firm Hill Dickinson has been named Legal Partner of the Year at the prestigious 2016 Claims Excellence Awards. The firm’s legacy team, comprising abuse and disease, collected the award at a ceremony held at The Brewery, London on Wednesday night (4 May).