Ian Smith kicks off the new year with some complicated case law
Now that the season of goodwill is mercifully over and we can revert to type, ie viewing each other with mutual suspicion if not positive dislike, the attention of employment lawyers (and anyone else strange enough to read this column for enjoyment) is drawn to three cases reported shortly before Christmas. They all concern important facets of current law and equally all of them show how complicated the answers to them can be. The first concerns part-time worker protection, which was eventually held not to apply to the claimant, even though at first sight he seemed to have a pretty good case. The second concerns time limits in discrimination law and in other forms of employment cases, being concerned to maintain an important distinction between them. Conversely, the third case (a relatively rare one these days on protection from detriment and/or dismissal for trade union reasons) is concerned to maintain consistency between the two statutory causes of action in question.
