![[Basket]](images/basket.png){kind=small}
Your order![[cover image]](images/issue/BK201705.jpg)
Leave for family emergencies
[ch 9: pages 334-335]Employees (not agency workers) have the right to reasonable unpaid time off work to deal with family emergencies involving parents, children, a spouse or co-habitee, or anyone who looks to the employee for assistance. There is no qualifying period of service. This is a Day One right.
A family emergency is defined as sickness, accident, criminal injury, death, funerals, absence of the carer for a family member or serious problems at the child’s school.
The right to time off is either to deal with unexpected or sudden events involving a dependant or to make arrangements for their care (Qua v John Ford Morrison EAT/884/01 [2003] IRLR 184).
The amount of leave is whatever is “reasonable in the circumstances” and is likely to involve relatively short periods of absence (Uzowuru v LB Tower Hamlets [2005] All ER (D) 181). It includes time off following a dependant’s death to make funeral arrangements and to attend the funeral, but not compassionate leave after bereavement (Forster v Cartwright Black Solicitors [2004] IRLR 781).
An employee who requests time off for urgent domestic reasons should provide enough information for their employer to know that the leave is for those purposes (Truelove v Safeway Stores [2005] All ER (D) 343).
Employees are protected from detriment or dismissal for exercising or seeking to exercise their rights to parental or family emergency leave. For example:
Shortly after starting work as a delivery and collection driver, Thomas Palen had to take a day off to be with his wife, who had been taken to hospital. He returned to work the following day and was dismissed. His employer told him they were such a small company they could not afford such incidents. The EAT held that Palen had been automatically unfairly dismissed for a reason related to the right to take time off under section 57A, ERA 96.
RKS Services v Palen [2007] All ER (D) 115
www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2006/0300_06_0211.html
On 8 December 2006, Ms Harrison’s childminder told her that she would not be available on 22 December. On 13 December Harrison, unable to make alternative arrangements, told RBS she would need to take that day off. Although RBS refused, Ms Harrison took the day off anyway and was disciplined. Harrison brought a claim, and RBS argued that her request for time off was not protected on the basis that she had time to make other arrangements. The EAT decided that Harrison’s request was both “necessary” and in response to something “unexpected”. Requests for time off to care for dependents are therefore not limited to last-minute incidents, as long as the employee can show they tried their best to make alternative arrangements.
Royal Bank of Scotland v Harrison [2008] UKEAT 0093/08/2706
Relevant law: section 57A, ERA 96