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Employment law brief: 9 July 2020

09 July 2020 / Ian Smith
Issue: 7894 / Categories: Features , Employment , Discrimination
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Ian Smith walks the line of three recent employment cases

In brief

  • Dismiss all and invite reapplications: not a panacea?
  • The limits of marriage/civil partnership discrimination.
  • The relationship between discrimination arising from disability and unfair dismissal.

There is something of a theme to the three cases considered in this month’s Brief, in that they all concern borderlines and the drawing of legal lines—(1) the distinction between reorganisation and redundancy, (2) where to draw the boundary of the legal protection against discrimination on the grounds of marriage and (3) how the laws on unfair dismissal and discrimination arising from disability interrelate in a case of dismissal because of disability-related incapability.

Dismiss & reapply

The decision in Gwynedd Council v Barratt UKEAT/0206/18explores a difficult distinction in redundancy unfair dismissal law between classic cases of selection from a pool on the one hand and the modern tactic of dismissing all and inviting them to apply for the jobs available. This ultimately raises the basic question:

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

Blake Morgan managing partner appointed chair of CBI South-East Council

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Commercial dispute resolution team welcomes partner in Cambridge

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Firm strengthens international funds capability with senior hire

NEWS
The proposed £11bn redress scheme following the Supreme Court’s motor finance rulings is analysed in this week’s NLJ by Fred Philpott of Gough Square Chambers
In this week's issue, Stephen Gold, NLJ columnist and former district judge, surveys another eclectic fortnight in procedure. With humour and humanity, he reminds readers that beneath the procedural dust, the law still changes lives
Generative AI isn’t the villain of the courtroom—it’s the misunderstanding of it that’s dangerous, argues Dr Alan Ma of Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Law Society in this week's NLJ
James Naylor of Naylor Solicitors dissects the government’s plan to outlaw upward-only rent review (UORR) clauses in new commercial leases under Schedule 31 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in this week's NLJ. The reform, he explains, marks a seismic shift in landlord-tenant power dynamics: rents will no longer rise inexorably, and tenants gain statutory caps and procedural rights
Writing in NLJ this week, James Harrison and Jenna Coad of Penningtons Manches Cooper chart the Privy Council’s demolition of the long-standing ‘shareholder rule’ in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investments
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