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Ian Smith tackles employers moving the goalposts & reflects on the dangers of fielding an unreliable defence
- Four recent Employment Appeal Tribunal decisions have clarified key employment law principles, including summary dismissal, bonus entitlement, trade union dismissals and tribunal procedure.
- The cases reinforce a fact-specific approach to employment disputes, while confirming limits on employer discretion and emphasising procedural fairness.
Even though the summer is upon us and the most important decision for employment lawyers is which of the now-seven volumes of the hard copy of Harvey to pack in their suitcase for light reading round the pool in Tuscany, these dog days have still seen four notable decisions of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) on some rather fundamental points of law. Not only that, but the first two concern essentially matters of common law as applied to employment law, namely whether an employee’s motives can be relevant when deciding on the legality of a summary dismissal, and when a bonus crystallises, so that the employer cannot then unilaterally move the proverbial goalposts.
The third case concerns the always-difficult
