Ian Smith gets in line & tackles variation, termination & compensation
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When do employees assent to a variation proposed by the employer?
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Termination by notice; date of effectiveness.
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Taxability of compensation for injury to feelings.
Three cases of some importance as matters of principle in mainstream employment law are considered in this month’s brief. In the first the Court of Appeal affirms previous orthodoxy as to when employees can (or, more appropriately here, cannot) be taken to assent to an attempt by the employer to impose a variation of contract. In the second, the Supreme Court has given a definitive ruling on when a notice of dismissal given by letter takes effect. In the third, the Court of Appeal overruled the specialist Tax Chamber on the vexed question of whether damages for injury to feelings are subject to tax. In doing so, it went against the approach advocated for some time in Harvey and thus put itself in grave danger of falling foul of ‘The curse of Harvey’,
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