Law Report: Case Summaries

The following notes of judgments were prepared by the reporters of the All England Law Reports.

Employment

Hackney London Borough Council, v Benn; EAT (Mummery J, AC Blyghton, JA Scouller); 10 June 1994.

An industrial tribunal which had accepted the employer's evidence as to the genuine reason for the employee's dismissal should test the unfairness of the employer's actions by the standards of the reasonable employer and should not substitute its own view of the position for that of the employer's.

Ian McDonald QC (Borough Solicitor) for the council; Jeremy McMullen QC (Johns & Saggar) for the employee.

Stewart v Cleveland Guest (Engineering) Ltd; EAT (Mummery J, JD Daly, TC Thomas); 23 June 1994.

Although an employee had been subjected to a detriment by the employer's continuing to permit the display of pictures of partially clothed and nude women in her workplace, an industrial tribunal had correctly directed itself in law when it decided the employers had not treated her less favourably than they would a man in the same circumstances. Complaints of this kind were not to be treated as trival and should be dealt with in a sympathetic and sensible fashion.

Tessa Gill (Vereena Jones, Manchester) for the employee; the employers were not represented.

Housing

R v Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council, Ex p Amarfio; QBD (Sir Louis Blom-Cooper QC); 24 June 1994.

A person on a youth training scheme was in gainful employment and not financially dependant on his parents. He was therefore not a dependent child who must reasonably be expected to reside with his parents within section 59(1)(b) of the Housing Act 1985 and was not to be included when the local authority assessed priority need for accommodation.

James Bowen (Daniel & Harris) for the applicant; Kate Astaniotis (Borough Solicitor) for the council.

Housing benefit

Regina v Maidstone Borough Council, Ex p Bunce; QBD (Brooke J); 23 June 1994.

A housing benefit review board was wrong to find that, if a person was over 65 and had a pension, that person was not in an exceptional situation and did not qualify for a carer premium under the housing benefit regulations. The applicant did not qualify for the carer premium because she had not made an application for invalid care allowance before she reached pensionable age.

Richard Drabble (Sinclair Taylor & Martin) for the applicant; Mark Bailey (Borough Solicitor) for the council.

Immigration

R v Secretary of State for Home Department, Ex parte Nazmul Miah; CA (Neill, Beldam, Millett LJJ); 21 July 1994.

The relevant date of an entry clearance certificate was the date of the final decision to grant entry clearance and not the date of the application for entry clearance or the date of the first decision on the application.

Alper Riza QC and M Soorjoo (Sushmahal, Manchester) for the applicant; Rabinder Singh (Treasury Solicitor) for the Home Secretary.

Industrial action

West Midlands Travel Ltd v Transport and General Workers' Union; CA (Sir Stephen Brown P, Rose, Millett LJJ); 16 June 1994.

Where a ballot paper asks two separate questions regarding industrial action, the 'majority' in s10(3) of the Trade Union Act 1984 was to be construed as the majority vote on each separate question in the ballot and not the majority of those voting on the whole ballot paper. Therefore industrial action has the support of a ballot if the majority of those voting on the specific industrial action in question answered 'yes' to the question.

D Serota QC and A Sendall (Sebastien Coleman & Co for Wragge & Co, Birmingham) for the employer; Patrick Elias QC and Jeremy McMullen QC (Pattinson & Brewer) for the union.