Roundup of Key 2021 Employment Cases

During 2021, the Employment Tribunal Service has continued to experience long waiting times and an increasing backlog of cases. However, despite this, 2021 has seen a number of important employment law judgments being issued by employment tribunals (ETs), the employment appeals tribunal (EAT), and the Supreme Court. In this blog, we explore some of the key cases throughout the year.
The first quarter of the year was busy with high-profile judgments. In February, in the case of Uber BV and others v Aslam and others, the Supreme Court ruled that Uber had not correctly classified their drivers as self-employed. In March, the Supreme Court was busy again, issuing two key judgments. The first of these was in the long-running case of Royal Mencap Society (Respondent) v Tomlinson-Blake. They ruled that only time spent awake and working during a sleep-in shift counted as working time for the purposes of entitlement to the National Minimum/Living Wage. The second was the case of Asda Stores Ltd v Brierley and others, involving an equal pay claim by 35,000 shop-floor workers at Asda. You can read more about all of these cases here.
However, the Supreme Court was not the only court issuing important employment judgments at the start of the year.  In February, the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) heard the case of Allay (UK) Ltd v Mr S Gehlen. Their judgment in this case sets out important expectations for employers regarding diversity and inclusion training and awareness.  Details of the case and ViewHR’s recommendations for employers based on the judgment are available here.
September brought us the appeal ruling in the case of Gwynedd Council v Barratt and another (Court of Appeal).  This addressed the question of whether an appeal in a redundancy process was necessary to ensure a fair dismissal.  The judgment given held that the absence of an appeal in an otherwise fair redundancy process does not, of itself, render the dismissal unfair. However, it was also noted that the absence of an appeal is one of many factors to consider in determining the overall fairness of redundancy, and so employers may not necessarily want to remove the appeal stage in their internal redundancy procedures.
In October, the EAT ruled in the case of Rooney v Leicester City Council (EAT), finding that an employment tribunal had wrongly decided that a woman suffering from menopausal symptoms was not disabled. Under the Equality Act 2010, employers have an obligation to give consideration to reasonable adjustments for employees with a disability, and so this ruling means that it is important employers consider how they can support their employees experiencing menopausal symptoms.  You can read more about this topic here.
Finally, what can we expect in 2022?  Throughout the year, we have seen a number of cases relating to Covid-19 reach employment tribunals, including Katun v. Winn Solicitors Ltd, Accattatis v Fortuna Group, and Gibson v Lothian Leisure. In 2022, we expect to see cases of this nature starting to reach the EAT, as unsuccessful parties appeal ET judgments.
As the government expands the requirement for care home workers to be vaccinated to NHS employees in healthcare settings also from April 2022, we will also be keenly watching out for cases relating to the topic of vaccination.  Please follow us on LinkedIn here for updates.
From all of the ViewHR team, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our blog readers and wish you all of the best for 2022!