Illegality of contract
In Okedina v Chikale, the Court of Appeal held that a worker's former employer could not block her contractual claims by arguing that she was working without the required immigration status.
Kirsti Laird is senior associate at Charles Russell Speechlys. She rounds up the latest rulings.
The Supreme Court has held that the connection between an employee's immigration offences and the statutory civil wrong of discrimination is insufficiently close to prevent her from making a claim for pre-dismissal racial harassment.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that the fact that a claimant had worked under an illegal contract did not prevent her from claiming sex discrimination.
The Court of Appeal has held that an employee who worked in the UK knowing that she did not have permission to do so was unable to claim discrimination against her unlawful employers, given that her illegal actions formed a material part of her discrimination claims.
Claire Benson is managing associate and Helen Corbett, Sinead Jones, Helen Ward and Tori O'Neil are associates at Addleshaw Goddard LLP. They round up the latest rulings.
In Enfield Technical Services Ltd v Payne; BF Components Ltd v Grace [2008] EWCA Civ 393, the Court of Appeal held that a genuine error in the categorisation of employment status will not be enough to establish illegality where there has been no express or implied misrepresentation of the facts of the working arrangements.
In Enfield Technical Services Ltd v Payne; Grace v BF Components Ltd EAT/0644/06, the EAT holds that the contracts of employment were not tainted by illegality because, although the parties had wrongly characterised them as contracts of self-employment, in neither case had the parties misrepresented to the authorities the facts of their relationship.
In Soteriou v Ultrachem Ltd and others [2004] IRLR 870 HC, the High Court held that the EAT had not erred in striking out the applicant's claim for wrongful dismissal on the basis that an employment tribunal had already determined on a claim for unfair dismissal that the applicant's contract of employment was unenforceable due to illegality and that, since the claim for wrongful dismissal involved the same contract, the EAT was bound by that finding.
In V v Addey & Stanhope School, the Court of Appeal holds that the extent of the employee's illegal and criminal conduct was such that it prevented him from pursuing a race discrimination claim.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to illegality of contract.