To kick off the new year, Ian Smith serves up a selection of delights including the role of fairness, the impact of the ACAS uplift & the relevance of gross misconduct in unfair dismissal claims
- A new implied term of fairness in operating procedures?
- Applying the ACAS uplift—the proper approach.
- The relevance of gross misconduct in an unfair dismissal claim.
The three cases considered in this brief are all important in well-known areas of employment law. In the first the Court of Appeal have laid the groundwork for a new stand-alone implied term that an employer will apply a disciplinary procedure fairly. Although this is obiter, it is highly likely that it will be pursued in a case where it’s directly relevant, and sooner rather than later. In the second case the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has laid down guidance to employment tribunals (ETs) in deciding on whether to apply the uplift for failure to abide by the ACAS Code of Practice and, crucially, by how much.
