LPC Law Notes Employment Law Notes
A collection of the best LPC Employment notes the director of Oxbridge Notes (a former Oxford law graduate) could find in 2014 after combing through seventeen LPC samples from outstanding students with the highest results in England and carefully evaluating each on accuracy, formatting, logical structure, spelling/grammar, conciseness and "wow-factor". In short these are what we believe to be the strongest set of Employment Law notes available in the UK this year. This collection of notes is full...
The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Employment Law Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:
Express and Implied Terms
Express Terms:
Written particulars (s.1 ERA & s.2 ERA)
Other express terms:
Right to suspend without pay
PILON clause
Mobility clause
Vary contract terms (limited effect)
Search an employee
Dismiss without notice where gross misconduct
Post-employment restrictive covenants/confidentiality clauses
Policies (non-contractual):
Many disciplinary and grievance policies mirror the minimum standards set out in the ACAS Code.
Oral agreement
Implied Terms: courts imply only if necessary
Statute: s. 86 ERA 1996, equal pay clause, Working Time Regs.
Custom/practice
Officious bystander test (so obvious that parties would have agreed this term had they been asked to)
Business efficacy test (to make the contract workable)
Duties owed by employer
Duty to pay - silent contract = employee entitled to reasonable remuneration.
Claims under National Minimum Wage Act 1998
Workers aged between 21 and 24 years of age should receive pay of 6.95 per hour
25 or over = 7.20 per hour
Duty to provide work
William Hill v Tucker [1999]: in publicity-based or commission- based careers there will be a duty to provide work.
Duty to take reasonable care for the employee’s health and safety
Common law & Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
Duty to take reasonable care in giving references
Not obliged to provide references at all.
If one is provided, a duty of care is owed.
True, accurate and fair reference which must not give a misleading impression. There is no obligation to go into any detail or for the reference to be comprehensive (Spring v Guardian Assurance plc)
Duties owed by employee
Duty to provide personal service (& not deliberately disable themselves)
Duty to work with reasonable skill, care and diligence
Duty of good faith and confidence (faithful service, not acting against best interests of employer and not to disclose confidential info)
Duty to obey lawful orders (cannot put employee in danger)
Mutual duties
Trust and confidence
Varying employment contracts
Unilateral variation by employer:
Employee acquiesces
Employee resigns on basis of constructive dismissal
Employee refuses to comply with change (employer can dismiss, employee can bring a claim)
Employee can stand and sue
Dismissal and re-engagement:
Terminate old contract and issue a new one
Runs the risk of employee not accepting new terms (can claim for wrongful and unfair dismissal)
Even if employee accepts new contract they can still claim since they were dismissed under the old contract
Post-Termination Restraints
Garden leave (paid but not required to attend workplace)
Garden leave can be enforced by garden leave injunction
Confidential Information
Implied duty of good faith encompasses a duty of confidentiality.
During employment
Cannot disclose trade secrets
Cannot disclose information regarded by employer as confidential
Once employment ends
Cannot disclose trade secrets
Cannot disclose highly confidential information (requires same protection as trade secret)
Trade secret = Faccenda Chicken Ltd v Fowler (1986): examine all circumstances, particularly:
Nature of employment and employee
Nature of information
Whether employee impressed on employee confidentiality of info
Whether information can be easily isolated from non-confidential info
Express confidentiality clause
Will not go further than implied duty but may be useful as a deterrent/aid to interpretation
Restrictive covenants
all restrictive covenants are prima facie void and unenforceable unless they:
protect a legitimate interest of the business; and
E.g. trade connections, trade secrets, stability of workforce
go no further than is reasonably necessary to protect that legitimate interest.
Consider duration of restraint, geographical restraint, needs/interests of business, duties of employee, would lesser protection suffice?
Consider duration of garden leave clause (can deduct garden leave from restricted period)
Common covenants:
Non-competition (most onerous)
Non-dealing
Non-poaching/solicitation (least onerous)
Blue pencil test: court will strike out unenforceable part and only enforce the remainder of the covenant if it make independent sense.
Wrongful dismissal = restrictive covenants unenforceable.
Provide for termination in cases of repudiatory breach
Provide for PILON
Remedies - bring in ordinary courts:
Damages
Injunction (discretionary) - American Cyanamid
Springboard injunction (prevent commercial advantage where confidential info already disclosed)
The Working Time Regulations 1998
Applies to workers (Reg. 2)
No more than 48 hours per week on average over a reference period of 17 weeks - (Reg. 4) - workers can opt out by written agreement.
“Working time” = employee is working, at the employer’s disposal and carrying out his activities or duties (Reg. 2)
Paid annual leave (Reg. 13 and Reg. 13A)
All workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid annual leave (equating to 28 days for a full time worker)
Eight bank holidays in England and Wales count towards the statutory entitlement of 5.6 weeks and are not additional
Reg. 16 = workers must be paid a week’s pay for each week’s leave
Employer may not pay a worker in lieu of annual leave, except on termination of his employment (Reg. 13(9)(b))
Employer cannot allow roll over of holiday entitlement (Reg. 13(9)(a)) - but this can be agreed in employment contract.
Reg. 15 = worker must give notice of at least twice as long as...
Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our Employment Law Notes.
A collection of the best LPC Employment notes the director of Oxbridge Notes (a former Oxford law graduate) could find in 2014 after combing through seventeen LPC samples from outstanding students with the highest results in England and carefully evaluating each on accuracy, formatting, logical structure, spelling/grammar, conciseness and "wow-factor". In short these are what we believe to be the strongest set of Employment Law notes available in the UK this year. This collection of notes is full...
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