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By Michael Scutt, 02/09/2010 9:41 am

I blogged last week on my forthcoming run for Cancer Research on 9^th October at Hatfield House.  Time for an update.

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By Michael Scutt, 24/08/2010 10:41 pm

August marks the anniversary of when I started blogging. Two years have zipped  by since I put fingers to keyboard and, if I may, whilst on holiday and trying not to think about work, I’d like to take a look back and get all personal.

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By Michael Scutt, 24/08/2010 10:00 am

Jobsworth in Training

Or, to be more accurate, please support Cancer Research, for whom I am running on the 9th October at Hatfield House in their 10k race.  It’s a worthy cause and I’m hoping that I can achieve the modest target of £250 to support their research into this dreadful disease.

I ran the City 5k race back in July and thought I should build on that.  I am hoping that the stimulus of raising money and publicising it via this blog and my Facebook page will keep me motivated during training: please help!

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By Michael Scutt, 22/07/2010 12:00 pm

Now we’re getting into the silly season (following Midsummer Madness) and before the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness descend, my thoughts have been turning to those irritating features of work life that really annoy everyone.  The most obvious is that workplace institution that makes so many people cringe: the annual (or semi-annual) appraisal.  Has there ever been anything so universally privately detested that has so little positive value and yet it continues to exist in the majority of workplaces?  Lucy Kellaway, writing in The Financial Times last week argued that they serve no useful purpose and should be scrapped.

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By Michael Scutt, 22/06/2010 10:30 am

For an employee who has decided to move on to pastures new and has handed in his/her notice, or has been told they are to be made redundant, there are certain pitfalls to be avoided. They may seem obvious (like serving notice), but people still fall foul of them. Walking out there and then is a big step for an employee – we’re in constructive dismissal territory here and legal advice should be taken  before you do it. In other cases some employees only have regard to the restrictive covenants in their contracts of employment (which are the clauses that say the departing employee won’t try to solicit work or custom from the clients he’s been dealing with, or prevent him from joining a competing business once he’s left).  Whether those restrictions are always legally enforceable is another matter and constitute another material for another blog post or three, but in this post I want to highlight for employees that trying to get ahead by taking confidential information, or by acting inappropriately whilst stil an employee (even if on garden leave) could end in tears.

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By Michael Scutt, 16/06/2010 1:41 pm

Cereal Litigants?

There’s no need to resort to garlic, holy water, crucifixes, or rosary beads to keep them away (we’re not quite in Bram Stoker territory yet) but there’s no doubt that serial litigants are a blot on the ET landscape.

Following on from my previous posts on the subject, there was some good news a few weeks back in the EAT on the issue of what a claimant has to prove to succeed with a claim for age discrimination.  The case of Keane v Investigo & others UKEAT/0389/09/SM, commented upon by Gordon Turner and Damian McCarthy in ELA Briefing last month[1], held that a claimant has to prove a genuine interest in performing the job advertised.  There can be no detriment to an unsuccessful applicant if they had no interest in doing the job in the first place.

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By Michael Scutt, 10/06/2010 10:00 am

Jobsworth isn’t averse to football; in fact, quite the opposite.  I shall be following  the travails of the England football team as keenly as anyone. it’s just that  I have just found other things to write about on this blog.  However, over at the Law Donut blog I did contribute my thoughts on the employment law challenges posed to employers during the forthcoming festivities. which include absenteeism, drunkenness, racist abuse – all in the name of sport. Can’t wait for the Olympics. Marvellous.

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By Michael Scutt, 04/06/2010 10:00 am

I'm not trying to be a "cool grandad", really I'm not

If you have ever had to sue someone else and gone through the courts or Employment Tribunal, or if you have been asked to sign a compromise agreement upon the termination of your employment, it’s pretty likely that at some point the words “without prejudice” will have cropped up, followed (perhaps) by “subject to contract”.  They can be baffling and many clients ask me what “without prejudice” means when I’m taking them through a compromise agreement.  One client once asked me to write a letter to the other side “with prejudice”.  Many people, lawyers and non-lawyers alike, write the words “without prejudice” on all their correspondence in the hope (presumably) that they will act as some kind of Harry Potteresque invisibility cloak to stop their words being thrown back at them in court.  It doesn’t always work.

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By Michael Scutt, 28/05/2010 11:55 am

Barrister and writer Tim Kevan has withdrawn the BabyBarista Blog from The Times in reaction to their plans to hide it away behind a subscription-based paywall. He commented: “I didn’t start this blog for it to be the exclusive preserve of a limited few subscribers. I wrote it to entertain whosoever wishes to read it.” The re-launched site is at www.babybarista.com and includes numerous cartoons of the blog’s characters by Times cartoonist Alex Williams.

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By Michael Scutt, 06/05/2010 11:21 pm

This is a question that we often get asked – by both employer and employee clients – when facing disciplinary or grievance meetings.  Recent case law has provided some guidance on it and I covered the subject in my first post on the Law Donut blog.  Click here to read it.

The Law Donut website and blog is an excellent resource for SMEs seeking legal comment and information on a wide variety of topics, not just employment law.  Do have a read of it.