Business and employment Law

Please read the case study below and answer the 2 questions at the end

Case Study – Trouble at the Milldam Brewery

The Milldam Brewery (MB) is a small craft beer company in Portsmouth that produces a limited range of bottled beer and similar alcohol products. The head brewer, Olaf, is 40 years old and has been working for the company as an employee for 15 years. He is an expert in making beer but is not so good at running a business. The company also employs four local men to do manual work moving stock and ingredients and assist in the brewing process. Recently the company has been trying to expand and in June 2017 the owners hired a new manager, Preeti, to make some changes that will make the business more competitive. Preeti becomes Olaf’s new line manager.

Straight away Olaf and Preeti begin to have personality clashes and arguments. Preeti wants to introduce new cost saving measures to the brewing process. Olaf feels this is micromanagement and an interference with his ability to do his job. They have several heated discussions but ultimately Olaf reluctantly follows the instructions he is given. Three months after Preeti began working for MB she and Olaf have a loud argument in the middle of the brewery warehouse after Preeti decides that the brewery should switch its hops supplier to a cheaper alternative. Olaf believes the new hops will be inferior and harm the quality of the beer. He swore at her and said she “was an idiot who doesn’t know anything about beer”.

Preeti responds by saying he is too angry and insubordinate to work for her and sends him home for the rest of the day. As he is getting ready to leave she informs him orally that he must attend a disciplinary meeting at 9am the next morning to discuss his behaviour, in particular the fact he swore at his line manager. She tells him that he is entitled to bring a trade union representative or a work colleague to the meeting. As a final comment before Olaf walks out the door Preeti says to him, “You better come in ready to apologise in the morning or you are going to get the sack.”

At the meeting the next morning another manager is present but Preeti leads the discussion. She sets out Olaf’s behaviour over the previous 3 months which she says was “argumentative and insubordinate” and tells Olaf that swearing at her the day before is a serious disciplinary offence. Olaf is given a chance to respond and sticks to the line that Preeti pushed him too far and was interfering in his job. At the end of the meeting Preeti tells Olaf that he is being dismissed effective immediately for gross misconduct.

The staff handbook at MB states that:

“Disciplinary action will be taken in accordance with the practices and procedures found in the ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.”

Over the next month Preeti finds that the atmosphere towards her at work among the 4 other young men who work in the brewery is very hostile. They are angry at the treatment of Olaf and although they continue to do their work and follow instructions, it is clear to Preeti she is not welcome. One day she overhears the men making racist jokes about her ethnic background and the color of her skin. Preeti is British but has South East Asian heritage. On another occasion she finds the words, “Get the bitch out!” written in chalk on the brewery wall near her car. She complains about the situation to the other senior employees and the owners of the brewery, but she is told that she is their manager and she should “sort it out herself”. Preeti does not feel she is able to address the problem without making the atmosphere worse.

When the job of replacement head brewer at MB is advertised, 3 candidates apply. Dave is a candidate with a degree in business management and 7 years of experience of making beer for another small brewery. Steve also applies but he has only secondary school education and 3 years of experience in a large industrial brewery. James has a technical qualification from a college in beer making and also has 3 years of experience working for a large brewery. At interview all candidates perform well. Preeti tells the other directors that she wants to employ James because he is black and she “is fed up of working in a company with only white men.”

Answer the two following Questions – Question One is worth 60 marks and Question Two is worth 40 marks.

Question 1. - Advise MB of their potential liability to Olaf in Unfair Dismissal.

60 marks

Question 2. - Advise MB about the possible claims that could be made against them by Preeti and Dave and Steve under the Equality Act 2010 and the potential remedies.

40 marks

Ignore any other claims that could arise from the facts.

Each question need to write:

1. Explain legal issue- how to identify the issue

2. Use the related law – can look at which seminar questions are related to coursework

3. Application- explain that why I will use this law, where take the law & the apply to the fact

4. Conclusion

5. Use the referencing is required to give intellectual credit to your source, helps the marker recover your source easily and avoids you being accused of plagiarism. Students must reference sources using the Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA). Details of this can be found on pages 23 - 25 Students should ensure all sources are fully cited in footnotes and in their bibliography in accordance with OSCOLA and that indentation or quotation marks (as appropriate) are used when quoting.

When you are ready to think about your answer the marker will be expecting you to structure it following the ILAC method.

What does ILAC stand for?

Introduction

Law

Application

Conclusion

What to put in an Introduction

Begin your answer with an introduction.

About each legal issue you have identified in the question which your client faces;

What area (or areas) of law relate to each issue,

Why the issue(s) are significant to your client; and

The order in which you plan to deal with each of them in turn.

For example, in a problem question on contract formation involving an advertisement made by a shop offering a free gift to anyone who spends over £50 in the store on a particular day, the first issue might be to determine the legal status of the advertisement (is it an offer or an invitation to treat?).

Once you have identified each issue, it is useful to explain its significance

to the outcome of the problem. Why does it matter? How and why will it

affect the ultimate advice/outcome for your client?

If there are several issues, you should deal with each one in turn

What to put in the Law section

Following the introduction comes an explanation of the legal principles relating to each issue mentioned in the introduction. This will include cases and if appropriate sections from relevant statutes, as they after all are the law and your client wants legal advice not simply your opinion!

Try to resist the temptation to jump to a conclusion straight away – you will gain credit for explaining the reasoning behind your conclusion, not for getting to the right answer without referring to any supporting

authority.

For example, if we are still dealing with the example given above, the relevant

legal principle would be that Partridge v Crittenden held that generally

speaking advertisements are invitations to treat but that it is clear from the

Court of Appeal decision in Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co that if they

satisfy certain requirements, advertisements can be classed as unilateral

offers – then explain what a unilateral offer is and set out the defining

qualities of a unilateral offer (in other words the requirements that would

have to be satisfied to bring an advertisement within the definition of a

unilateral offer).

At this stage, you are simply setting out the law rather than worrying about

the specific facts of the problem question.

What to put in the Application section

Having explained the legal principles, you must now explain how they will impact on your client’s issue. Again cases, and if relevant, sections from statutes will be needed here. Your client will want to know about the impact as that will determine their legal rights, or possible liabilities.

Taking the example used above, you would need to apply the various qualities/requirements of a unilateral offer and see whether they are satisfied by the wording of the advertisement in the problem question.

What we will be looking for in a Conclusion

In it you will predict the outcome for your client - what legal rights/remedies they have or what liabilities they face based on the application of the legal principles you have just explained.

For example, your conclusion might be that the wording of the

advertisement in the question satisfies the requirements of a unilateral offer and therefore the shop has made an offer to the world as was the case in Carlill.

What to do if you are asked to advise more than one person in the question?

If you are asked to advise several characters in a question have one Introduction covering all of them but then have separate Law and Application parts for each one followed by a mini Conclusion and then at the very end of your answer have an overall Conclusion which draws every mini conclusion together and provides the final advice to your clients.