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08 October 2021 / Ian Smith
Issue: 7951 / Categories: Features , Employment
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Employment law brief: 8 October 2021

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This month, Ian Smith focuses on part-time and zero hours conundrums, and shares a tale of compulsory retirement from the city of dreaming spires
  • Part-timers—the reason for less favourable treatment. Effect of suspension on a zero-hours contract. Asserting statutory rights—a question of timing. Age discrimination justification—you pays your money and takes your choice.

The employment lawyer’s plea/cop-out ‘It’s all a question of fact’ can be seen writ large in the last cases considered here, both against Oxford University by compulsorily retired professors. Before these, there are cases this month on less favourable treatment of part-timers, the effect of a suspension on a person under a zero-hours contract (with the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) going back on a previous but difficult case of its own) and the assertion of statutory rights (with the EAT suggesting a way around what could be a possible limitation on the claimant’s rights here).

Part-timers

The difference between the causation test of ‘but for’ and the motivation test of ‘on the ground that’ may seem to an outsider to be legal sophistry, but the case

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Hogan Lovells—Lisa Quelch

Hogan Lovells—Lisa Quelch

Partner hire strengthens global infrastructure and energy financing practice

Sherrards—Jan Kunstyr

Sherrards—Jan Kunstyr

Legal director bolsters international expertise in dispute resolution team

Muckle LLP—Stacey Brown

Muckle LLP—Stacey Brown

Corporate governance and company law specialist joins the team

NEWS

NOTICE UNDER THE TRUSTEE ACT 1925

HERBERT SMITH STAFF PENSION SCHEME (THE “SCHEME”)

NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND BENEFICIARIES UNDER SECTION 27 OF THE TRUSTEE ACT 1925
Law firm HFW is offering clients lawyers on call for dawn raids, sanctions issues and other regulatory emergencies
From gender-critical speech to notice periods and incapability dismissals, employment law continues to turn on fine distinctions. In his latest employment law brief for NLJ, Ian Smith of Norwich Law School reviews a cluster of recent decisions, led by Bailey v Stonewall, where the Court of Appeal clarified the limits of third-party liability under the Equality Act
Non-molestation orders are meant to be the frontline defence against domestic abuse, yet their enforcement often falls short. Writing in NLJ this week, Jeni Kavanagh, Jessica Mortimer and Oliver Kavanagh analyse why the criminalisation of breach has failed to deliver consistent protection
Assisted dying remains one of the most fraught fault lines in English law, where compassion and criminal liability sit uncomfortably close. Writing in NLJ this week, Julie Gowland and Barny Croft of Birketts examine how acts motivated by care—booking travel, completing paperwork, or offering emotional support—can still fall within the wide reach of the Suicide Act 1961
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