Introduction

There are over 70 pieces of employment legislation that govern our rights at work, from contractual rights such as a right to be paid wages, to anti-discrimination laws giving workers the right not to suffer discrimination in the workplace. While this legislation sets out our basic rights, it rarely gives enough detail to cover all the circumstances in which it will need to be applied - this is the purpose of case law.

For example, the Employment Rights Act 1996 states that in order for a dismissal to be fair, the employer must have a fair reason for the dismissal, and the dismissal must be reasonable in all the circumstances. But it does not give much guidance as to what would make a dismissal "reasonable". Consequently there have been numerous cases in which tribunals and the higher courts have had to consider the test of reasonableness in a case of unfair dismissal. Even before the facts in an unfair dismissal claim can be heard, the person who has been dismissed must establish that they were an employee - the right not to be unfairly dismissed does not apply to workers or the self-employed. The tests to determine whether or not someone is an employee are continually being refined through case law (see chapter 2).

LRD's annually updated guide, Law at work, explains all the key areas of employment law, including many significant cases. However, it is beyond the scope of Law at work to provide further details of the cases or to include more than the key decisions. Case law at work 2004-05 is a unique source of information on recent employment law cases, designed as a companion to Law at work 2004, and following the same chapter headings.

It is important for any union representative to know how employment legislation has been interpreted by the courts and how the law has been changed by recent decisions. Case law at work 2004-05 gives details of recent cases that have been decided by the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT), the Court of Appeal (CA), the House of Lords (HL) and the European Court of Justice (ECJ), many of which have not been reported in other publications, with the exception of LRD's Workplace Report.

The system of legal precedent means that lower courts are bound by the decisions of higher courts. This means that employment tribunals must follow decisions that have been made by the EAT, who must follow those of the Court of Appeal. The House of Lords is the highest court in the UK, so the principles decided here will apply to all courts and tribunals beneath it. Decisions made by employment tribunals are not binding on other tribunals and they are not included in this booklet. The European Court of Justice deals with the interpretation of European law - all tribunals and courts can refer a case to the ECJ on a particular issue.

Where cases have been reported in official law reports, those references are given. These will be either the Industrial Relations Law Reports (IRLR) or the Industrial Cases Reports (ICR). The full text of the decisions is published in those reports. For other cases, the court reference is given. Recent cases are also published on the web:

* EAT cases at www.employmentappeals.gov.uk;

* Court of Appeal cases at www.courtservice.gov.uk;

* House of Lords cases at www.publications.parliament.uk; and

* ECJ cases at www.europa.eu.int/cj.

Cases are described under the most relevant chapter and section headings. But where they rule on more than one point of law, the booklet provides a cross reference to the case - and all cases are listed in the index on pages 129 to 134.