with her employer, a police authority, from her office
was a breach of her rights under Art 8.
Duties of an employee
To use reasonable skill and care in the work
The common law provides that an employee who claims
to have a particular skill or skills but shows himself to
be incompetent may be dismissed without notice. His
employer can also raise the matter of the incompetence
of the employee if the employer is sued under statute
law, i.e. the ERA 1996 for unfair dismissal.
The common law also requires unskilled employees
to take reasonable care in carrying out the job. However,
they may be dismissed only if there is a serious breach of
this implied term of the contract.
To carry out lawful and reasonable
instructions
The law implies a term into a contract of employment
which requires the employee to obey the lawful and
reasonable instructions of his employer. However, an
employee is not bound to carry out illegal acts. In Gregory
v Ford(1951) one of the decisions of the court was that
an employee could not be required to drive a vehicle
which was not insured so as to satisfy the law set out in
what is now the Road Traffic Act 1988. If the employee
does refuse, he is not in breach of his contract.
The duty to give faithful service (or the duty
of fidelity)
This is an implied term of a contract of employment.
Certain activities of employees are regarded by the law as
breaches of the duty to give faithful service. Thus, as we
have seen, an employee who while employed copies the
names and addresses of his employer’s customers for use
after leaving the employment can be prevented from
using the information (Robbv Green(1895)).
However, the implied term relating to fidelity does
not apply once the contract of employment has come to
an end. Therefore, a former employee cannot be prevented
under this implied term from encouraging customers of
his former employer to do business with him, though he
can be prevented from using actual lists of customers
which he made while still employed. If an employer (A)
wants to stop an employee (B) from trying to win over
his, A’s, customers, then the contract of employment
between A and B must contain an expressclause in
restraint of trade preventing this. Such a clause must, as
we have seen, be reasonable in time and area (see also
Chapter 7 ).
A former employee can, however, be prevented by the
court from using his former employer’s trade secretsor
confidential information without a clause in the con-
tract about restraint of trade.
However, as we have seen, the ruling of the Court of
Appeal in Pocton Industries Ltdv Michael Ikem Horton
(2000) stresses the importance to employers of putting
express termsinto their contracts of employment to
control the use and disclosure of confidential informa-
tion after the employment contract ends. The courts seem
to prefer the contractual approach to the rather vague
concept of the implied term. The contract can give more
specific guidance to the court as to what is to be protected.Confidential information
It is an implied term of a contract of service that the
employee must not disclose trade secrets, e.g. a special
way of making glass as in Forster & Sons Ltdv Suggett
(1918), or confidential informationacquired during
employment. There is strictly no need for an express
clause in the contract.
However, the use by an employee of knowledge of
trade secrets and information cannot be prevented if
it is just part of the total job experience. An employee
cannot be prevented from using what he could not help
but learn from doing the job.Part 4Business resources
490
Printers & Finishersv Holloway (No 2)
(1964)
The claimants brought an action against Holloway, their
former works manager, and others, including Vita-tex
Ltd, into whose employment Holloway had subsequently
entered. They claimed an injunction against Holloway and
the other defendants, based, as regards Holloway, on an
alleged breach of an implied term in his contract of
service with the claimants that he should not disclose or
make improper use of confidential information relating to
the claimants’ trade secrets. Holloway’s contract did not
contain an express covenant relating to non-disclosure
of trade secrets.
The claimants were flock printers and had built up
their own fund of ‘know-how’ in this field. The action
against Vita-tex arose because Holloway had, on one
occasion, taken a Mr James, who was an employee of
Vita-tex Ltd, round the claimants’ factory. Mr James’
visit took place in the evening and followed a chance
meeting between himself and Holloway. However, the