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Age discrimination
The Supreme Court has held that a requirement that employees obtain a law degree before they could be promoted to the highest grade was indirect age discrimination against the claimant, who did not have enough time to complete a degree before he reached the employer's retirement age. However, it sent the case back to the employment tribunal to decide whether or not the employer's actions were justified as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
The European Court of Justice has held that an employer is not obliged to provide an unsuccessful job applicant with information on the successful candidate, although a failure to do so could lead to an inference of discrimination in a subsequent tribunal claim.
Dinu Suntook, Cane Pickersgill and Poppy Fildes are all associates at Addleshaw Goddard. They round up the latest rulings.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that the employer was justified in deciding who would be chosen for voluntary redundancy on the basis of who would cost the least to make redundant, despite this criterion being indirectly discriminatory against a particular group of older workers.
The employment tribunal in this case found that it was not age discrimination for the civil service to place limits on the amount that it would pay under a voluntary "early-release scheme" designed to encourage turnover in the workforce.
A pub manager in his first supervisory role left to his own devices made a series of errors in dismissing a disabled older worker, in a case with so many mistakes by management that it could be used to train line managers on employment issues.
In this case, the industrial tribunal in Northern Ireland described a small employer's decision to dismiss a young worker to avoid having to increase her pay from £4.00 to the national minimum wage rate of £4.92, when she reached the age of 18, as "callous".
The European Court of Justice has held that a rule in a collective agreement applicable to the crew of the German airline Deutsche Lufthansa prohibiting pilots from flying after the age of 60 is discriminatory on the ground of age.
In this decision, the employment tribunal was critical of a local authority that failed to keep an employee at risk of redundancy in employment for six more months during a transitional period. The decision had been taken to avoid a pension payout and constituted direct age discrimination and unfair dismissal.
This unusual age discrimination claim was brought by a contract worker with poor people skills who believed that his contract was terminated because of his youth.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to age discrimination.