Employment law brief: 13 February 2026

• Key employment law rulings address when volunteers can qualify as ‘workers’, how capability dismissals must be assessed by reference to contractual duties rather than future roles, and the flexible, fact-specific nature of what constitutes a reasonable misconduct investigation.
• Passing the Employment Appeal Tribunal sift does not protect an appellant from costs, reinforcing that appeals may still be deemed misconceived once fully argued.

Things are certainly hotting up on the legislative front, with the issuing of the first commencement order for the Employment Rights Act 2025 (SI 2026/3). This will be the first of many over the next 18 months or so. On the judicial front, the last month has seen four cases of some importance on matters of interpretation and application of the existing law. The first is a Court of Appeal decision on the employment status of volunteers, of importance to many others