Employment law cases in the news – 04.09.2017 to 10.09.2017

In the latest of our series of posts on employment law cases in the news, we take a look at ten employment law cases that have made headlines between 4 September 2017 and 10 September 2017

  1. Bakery fined after the death of contractor – A Hull based bakery has been fined today following the death of self-employed electrical contractor who died following a fall from height (HSE)
  2. Football club in contract row ordered to pay player £7,400 – A football club has been ordered to hand over more than £7,000 in unpaid wages to a player after its contract with him was branded a “sham” (The Argus)
  3. Car dealer ordered to pay thousands after ‘compounding’ employee’s mental health – A former service adviser at car dealer Charles Hurst has been awarded almost £12,000 after her workplace treatment seriously “exacerbated” her mental health problem (The Belfast Telegraph)
  4. Sacked Cardiff surgeon Peter O’Keefe ‘now an Uber driver’ – A heart surgeon from Cardiff who was dismissed for bullying colleagues is now working as an Uber driver. Peter O’Keefe, 52, was suspended on full pay from Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales in 2012 and was later sacked in 2015 (BBC)
  5. Payout for Bridgwater farmhand after goat slaughter meant he had none to milk – A farmhand who was paid £340 a week for milking goats has won a legal claim against a Bridgwater farm after the slaughter of 900 animals caused the loss of his job (The Bridgewater Mercury)
  6. Paralegal wins employment tribunal claim for £14,000 bonus from personal injury firm – A paralegal employed by a personal injury firm under an oral contract was entitled to a bonus payment worth almost £14,000, an employment tribunal has ruled (Legal Futures)
  7. Company fined after death of worker using fork lift truck – A Derbyshire-based company has been fined after the death of a 19-year-old worker, when a fork lift truck (FLT) overturned at the company’s site in Chinley, Derbyshire (HSE)
  8. Ex-KWM staff set for payout as group accepts ‘maximum recoverable’ settlement over layoffs – Former King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) staff have accepted a financial settlement offered by the firm’s administrators over the way their redundancies were handled when the firm’s European arm collapsed in January (Legal Week)
  9. Third of council equal pay claims still not settled – Councils across Scotland have still to settle more than a third of all equal pay claims 13 years after the deadline for new rules was set, a spending watchdog has found (BBC)
  10. Sacked Blackburn College lecturer who made racist comments has unfair dismissal appeal thrown out – A college lecturer who told a fasting colleague he should hide a sandwich box under his beard has had his appeal for unfair dismissal thrown out (The Lancashire Telegraph)