Ford v Warwickshire CC

Ford v Warwickshire CC [1983] ICR 273 is a UK labour law case, concerning unfair dismissal, now governed by the Employment Rights Act 1996.

Facts

Mrs Ford worked from September to July on successive fixed term contracts for 8 academic years as a part time lecturer. Given the summer breaks, the question was whether her summer holiday breaks counted as merely temporary cessations of work.

Judgment

Lord Diplock held that there was enough continuity of employment to establish the qualifying period. ‘One looks to see what was the reason for the employer’s failure to renew the contract on the expiry of its fixed term and asks oneself the question: was that reason ‘a temporary cessation of work,’ within the meaning of that phrase’. So for dismissal and redundancy, the period is broken unless ‘there is to be found between one fixed term contract and its immediate predecessor an interval that cannot be characterised as short relatively to the combined duration of the two fixed term contracts. Whether it can be so characterised is a question of fact and degree and so is for decision by an industrial tribunal…’

See also

• UK labour law

Notes

References