Professional negligence claims are predicted to be on the rise following Andrew Mitchell’s ‘Plebgate’ claim which served as a stark warning for all solicitors.
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Articles by ‘Nicola Radcliffe’
Libel legislation in England and Wales has undergone a make-over, with the new Defamation Act 2013 coming into force on 1 January 2014. The new Act introduces an improved system for reporting and taking action to remove defamatory statements published online.
Andrew Mitchell’s ‘plebgate’ defamation claim against the Sun newspaper hits the headlines again and serves as a stark warning for all solicitors about the court’s approach to procedural failures.
In Park Cakes Limited v Shumba and others, the Court the Appeal overturned a Tribunal decision that enhanced redundancy benefits had not become contractual through custom and practice. The Court found no evidence to demonstrate that these benefits had not historically always been paid, which would evolve a custom and practice, and that the tribunal had been wrong to hold that no custom and practice had been established.
The case of Dhunna v Creditsights Limited involved an appeal from an Employment Judge decision refusing jurisdiction to hear an unfair dismissal and Employment Relations Act complaints claim of an employee who lived and worked wholly abroad. The EAT overturned this decision and held that the case could be heard and that the Tribunal had jurisdiction to do so. The reason for this was that, at the time the Employment Judge took the decision to refuse jurisdiction, the leading authority in this area was Lawson v Serco Limited; however by the time of the appeal there had been other decisions which widened the jurisdictional scope for employees living and working abroad. The Employment Judge had taken the view that the Dubai office was not a representative office of the Respondent and the Claimant was not working there as a representative of the Respondent in Dubai, but was instead part of the Respondent’s Asian business arm.