The recent case of Mr Robert McKie v Swindon College [2011] EWHC 469, serves as a warning to employers about the risk of poor communication regarding former employees. McKie was fired from a newly attained job at the University of Bath on the basis of an e-mail sent by his previous employer, Swindon College. The e-mail in question contained information about McKie that subsequently caused him to suffer damages and was determined by the Court to have “flouted elementary standards of fairness, diligence, proper enquiry, natural justice.” The Court ruled in favor of McKie and held that “an employer owed a duty to its former employee to take reasonable care when referring to that former employee in communications with a third party.” This decision expanded the scope of the duty of care on the previously relied upon precedent case (The House of Lords in Spring v Guardian Assurance [1994] 2 A.C. 296), to include circumstances beyond simply providing a reference. This was the first time the Court acknowledged, “an employer can, outside a reference situation, owe a former employee a duty of care when communicating with a third party” and went on to say, “if that former employee suffers loss as a result of the communication, they may well be entitled to bring a claim in negligence against their former employer.”
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