Discrimination

Continuing with tribunal proceedings is as much a protected act as bringing proceedings in the first place.

The Equality Act 2010 excludes an impairment of vision where ‘in the person's case, correctable by spectacles or contact lenses or in such other ways as may be prescribed’. ‘Correctable’ is a practical question which must consider not only whether the impairment was corrected but whether there are unacceptable adverse consequences.

A tribunal has made a 25% uplift to an employee’s award following her former employer’s failure to deal with a post-termination grievance.

An employer’s decision to withdraw the offer of an overseas posting to a severely disabled employee because of its medical concerns was not disability discrimination.

Knowledge of an employee’s disability could have been acquired during an appeal against dismissal.

The adverse treatment of a gay head teacher amounted to constructive dismissal and sexual orientation discrimination.

The disciplining of an employee for refusal to obey a lawful instruction (due to a mistaken belief it would impact on her disability) was not unfavourable treatment due to something arising from a disability.

Sending an important letter about redundancies to a woman on maternity leave to a work email account which she could not access could be unfavourable treatment under the Equality Act. But whether it was also maternity discrimination depends upon the reasons why that treatment occurred.

EAT clarifies how to interpret ‘long term’ for the purpose of the definition of disability.

The dismissal of a teacher at an ultra-orthodox Jewish nursery who refused to lie about living with her boyfriend was not discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief.

For the purposes of equal pay law, two distinct parts of a workforce (here female shop floor workers and higher-paid male distribution centre workers) can compare their pay, even if they are located at different sites, in different parts of the organisation/group, and with very different pay arrangements/management structures.

A disabled employee who had reduced his hours from full time to part time before taking ill-health retirement had not been treated ‘unfavourably’ when an element of his pension benefits was calculated by reference to his part-time salary at the date of retirement.

A promotion or change in role within the same organisation will not necessarily amount to a ‘radical’, ‘fundamental’ or ‘significant’ change so as to break a ‘stable working relationship’ for the purposes of calculating time limits for an equal pay claim.

The requirement for a part-time worker to be available for work on proportionately more days than a full-time worker was less favourable treatment. In deciding whether such treatment is legally justified, tribunals should consider statistical evidence.

A bakery did not discriminate against a gay man on the grounds of his sexual orientation or political belief when it refused to supply a cake with a message on it supporting gay marriage.

A flawed ill-health retirement process will not, by itself, amount to direct disability discrimination or discrimination arising from disability.

An employee will be protected from victimisation if they wrongly but honestly believed the allegations they made to be true, even if they had an ulterior motive for making those allegations.

Taking a flexible and individualised approach to reducing sick pay for a disabled employee will help employers make out a justification defence to a disability discrimination claim.

An employer did not discriminate when it dismissed an employee who refused to sign a copyright agreement because she held a ‘philosophical belief’ that she should own the rights to her work.

A disabled employee who was disciplined for 60 days’ absence over a 12-month period was discriminated against because her absence arose from her disability and her employer had failed to establish that its action was a proportionate response to her absence.