Ian Smith is back with a bang, rounding up the latest employment updates including COVID fears in the workplace & claims submitted one day out of time
- Health and safety protection: unfair dismissal and COVID fears.
- Applying the just and equitable extension of time.
- Problems with ruling on admissibility of evidence at a preliminary stage.
Just before the Christmas break, the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in a case that had been awaited by employment lawyers, concerning the operation of a potentially relevant piece of legislation in COVID-related cases. Ultimately the question was whether an employee dismissed for refusing to return to work for fear of infection could claim the protection of the special unfair dismissal provisions on dismissal for health and safety-connected reasons. We had already had of course the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) decision (the first at appellate level), but it was possible to argue that that decision was largely on factual issues, leaving much to be examined in more detail.
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