In this month’s employment brief, Ian Smith takes on whistleblowing & exclusion & gives a nod to Sweden
- Whistleblowing detriment and the liability of fellow workers.
- Exclusion of overseas employment; some refinements to the Lawson rules.
- Agency workers; applying the Swedish derogation.
What the three cases considered this month have in common is that they concerned apparently small and precise points in the wider scheme of the various statutory provisions behind them, but ones which were in need of guidance from appellate courts. In the first, the Court of Appeal considered for the first time the fellow worker/vicarious liability provisions introduced into whistleblowing law by a significant amendment in 2013; the result is favourable to the claimant, but the reasoning involved an interesting balancing of the possible anomalies in each side’s arguments, largely caused by the fact that, although whistleblowing is in form covered by the employment law statute, it really bears more resemblance to discrimination law. In the second case, the Court of Appeal established some interesting additions to the Lawson v Serco [2006] UKHL 3, [2006] All ER
