Miscellaneous

The Supreme Court has held supermarket Morrisons liable for an assault on a customer by one of its employees.

An employer had a ‘duty of care’ to provide its employee with important information on the tax implications of a decision he proposed to take about his retirement benefits.

Where an employer had a ban on personal use of company equipment and an employee denied using an e-mail account for personal reasons, it was not a breach of his right to a private life for his employer to access that personal account to disprove what he was saying. This does not mean that employers have the right to look at all private communications of their staff at any time.

The victimisation provisions in the Equality Act 2010 could extend to claims of discrimination by association.

The dismissal of an employee who took time off work to take his wife to hospital was not automatically unfair as he had not contacted his employer to explain the reason for his absence as soon as reasonably practicable.

A reduction of an employee’s wages to recover an overpayment made in a previous pay period was a ‘deduction’ in law and thus the amount and purpose of the deduction should have been itemised on the employee’s payslip.