The Contradiction Engine · For lawyers · Free

Speaking out or staying silent?

The situation

You advise Marwick Care Trust. A nurse, Ola Brandt, has published a blog saying that night shifts on Ward 6 are ‘dangerously understaffed’. She gives the real number of staff on three named nights, taken from the internal rota, and the number of patients on the ward. She names no patient.

The Trust’s HR director wants to dismiss her at once for breach of confidentiality and asks you whether that is safe.

The rules

Rule A (Employment Act 2017, s.14). An employee may express views on matters of public concern, including the conduct of the employer, and may not be dismissed for doing so unless the dismissal is justified under section 16.
Rule B (s.15). An employee must not disclose confidential information about patients, or other information that the employer has marked confidential and has a legitimate interest in protecting.
Rule C (s.16). Dismissal for expression is justified only if the expression disclosed information within section 15, or caused serious harm, and dismissal is a proportionate response, having regard to whether a lesser sanction such as a warning would be enough.

Your task

Advise the Trust whether it should dismiss Ms Brandt.

Everything you need is on this page: no outside law and no tools. All places, statutes and people are fictional (the Republic of Eastmark). More than one answer may be defensible: what matters is that your reasoning follows the rules shown.

Step 1 · What kind of conflict is this?

A real conflict that the law does not resolve: reasonable lawyers could differ.No real conflict: the two rules govern different things.The conflict disappears once the rules are read together properly.A real conflict that the law tells the decision-maker to resolve by weighing.

Professional skills training with fictional material. It is not legal advice and is not accredited by any court, regulator or professional body.