Employment law brief: 20 October 2016

• Old principles of fair treatment of staff in employment law abut on to the modern laws on child protection.
• When can you establish an oral express term in a contract of employment, when there is no supporting documentary evidence?
• Who is a “client” in a TUPE case?
• When is a union liable for the acts of its elected official?

At a time when the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse is sinking into major problems of staffing, scope and timing, it is perhaps appropriate that the first case this month concerns the serious difficulties encountered when old principles of fair treatment of staff in employment law abut on to the modern laws on child protection. It split the Court of Appeal fundamentally, with the doyen of employment law, Elias LJ, being contradicted by a noted family law judge, and the third lord justice siding with the latter in no uncertain terms. This circle is proving to be particularly hard to square.