EMPLOYMENT LAW TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT LAW CONSULTANCY

On the lighter side..........?

Soft Soap?

Wayne Simpson, an EDF Energy salesman, lost his £28,000-a-year job after he sent a customer a picture of himself sitting naked drinking whisky in a bubble bath. Simpson had met the female customer while selling door-to-door on Tyneside; he obtained her number and later sent the picture with a message saying, “Fancy going out for a drink sometime?” The woman didn’t and instead reported him to the company and the police. Simpson accused EDF of lacking a sense of humour. “I wasn’t even showing off my naughty bits,” he said.

The naughty chair!

Sue Storer, a 48-year-old teacher at Bedminster Down Secondary School in Bristol, sought damages of £1 million for sex discrimination and constructive dismissal claiming she had been forced to sit in a chair that made embarrassing sounds every time she moved. “It was a regular joke that my chair would make these farting sounds and I regularly had to apologise that it wasn’t me, it was my chair,” she said. Requests for a new chair had been repeatedly ignored while male colleagues were given sleek, executive-style chairs, she said. Her claim was thrown out.

Sleeping with the Boss!

This EAT case concerned a solicitor who had formed an intimate relationship with one of his staff. He then saw her in the company of another man, with whom she also had a relationship apparently. The Solicitor took exception to this and dismissed the woman with no notice and without following any procedure. This was clearly an unfair dismissal and would also breach the Statutory Dismissal rules. The woman also claimed damages for Sex Discrimination (which are unlimited and could be increased by 50% for the failure to follow any procedures). However this part of the claim failed as the court decided she was dismissed because of the man’s jealousy and not because she was a woman!

Postscript

In an effort to reduce absence levels a Company decides to introduce management training. Managers are told that whenever a member of staff calls in sick on a Monday or Friday, they are to start the conversation with “Well, Well, Well, this looks very suspicious...”!