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13 June 2025
Issue: 8120 / Categories: Legal News , Employment , Tribunals , Whistleblowing
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NLJ this week: Incomplete documentation, ‘bad apples’ & vicarious liability in whistleblowing

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Is there such a thing as a ‘bad apple’ principle in employment law? In this week’s NLJ, Ian Smith, barrister, emeritus professor of employment law at the Norwich Law School, UEA, covers four recent, important cases of value for practitioners

They span the requirement of causation in part-time worker less favourable treatment cases, and the best approach to incomplete documentation in an appeal. Smith’s employment law brief also covers vicarious liability of agents in whistleblowing cases and the position of job evaluation schemes in equal value cases.

On incomplete documentation, Smith writes that a 2023 amendment to the regulations ‘was to remedy the position whereby approximately a fifth of appeals to the EAT were in time but missing some documentation, taking up too much of the EAT’s time. The aim was therefore to relax the previous strictness in cases of partial failure to comply in a case where the appeal was otherwise in time… The holding of the Court of Appeal was that the EAT’s approach failed to give effect to this clear intent’. 

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Keystone Law—Milena Szuniewicz-Wenzel & Ian Hopkinson

Keystone Law—Milena Szuniewicz-Wenzel & Ian Hopkinson

International arbitration team strengthened by double partner hire

Coodes Solicitors—Pam Johns, Rachel Pearce & Bradley Kaine

Coodes Solicitors—Pam Johns, Rachel Pearce & Bradley Kaine

Firm celebrates trio holding senior regional law society and junior lawyers division roles

Michelman Robinson—Sukhi Kaler

Michelman Robinson—Sukhi Kaler

Partner joins commercial and business litigation team in London

NEWS
The government has pledged to ‘move fast’ to protect children from harm caused by artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, and could impose limits on social media as early as the summer
All eyes will be on the Court of Appeal (or its YouTube livestream) next week as it sits to consider the controversial Mazur judgment
An NHS Foundation Trust breached a consultant’s contract by delegating an investigation into his knowledge of nurse Lucy Letby’s case
Draft guidance for schools on how to support gender-questioning pupils provides ‘more clarity’, but headteachers may still need legal advice, an education lawyer has said
Litigation funder Innsworth Capital, which funded behemoth opt-out action Merricks v Mastercard, can bring a judicial review, the High Court ruled last week
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