Case Study: Cox V. Sun Alliance Life Ltd.

As an employer you have a certain level of liability to your employees and their future employers for a reference, which should be truthful, honest and solely based on their performance in the firm. It is up to the employer to not write a reference that might be misleading or has false information; this might harm the recipient (employer) and the subject (employee) causing an economic loss and also affecting their future in their career. It is known through tort that liability arises by fault of a particular party or in other words negligence occurs when an employer who has a civil duty provides evidence but their actions lead to a foreseeability of damage. Lets discuss some cases where the rules were established to defend breaches of duty of care and see how it compares with universities and its students.

Negligence is an …show more content…
Cox v Sun Alliance Life Ltd (2001) is an example of a case where the claimant resigned and in an agreement asked for a reference that has no mentions of why he resigned but instead the defendant gave his new employers a reference stating that he had been suspended pending the outcome of investigations of allegations of dishonesty. The court of appeal decided that the defendant had breached his duty of care even though the reference was honest and true but it breached the agreed settlement and those unfavourable statements that were not factually true, should be kept with them unless they have reasonable grounds for believing it to be true. Similarly, in the case Kidd v Axa Equity and Law Life Assurance Society plc (2000) the high court decided that the giver of a reference owes a duty to take reasonable care not to give any misleading information and also the giver of the reference owes no additional duty to give a full and comprehensive reference sharing his own opinions on the