The Court of Appeal has held that there could be no remedy for part-time female workers who were prevented from joining an occupational pension scheme during particular periods because they would not have chosen to join the pension scheme even if they had been eligible to do so.
The employer in this case got a review of its flexible working arrangements wrong by assuming that women's applications to retain their flexible working arrangements should be favoured over men's applications.
An unfortunate situation arose for this small employer when a recruitment consultant was made redundant after she had informed it, just two weeks into her new job, that she was pregnant. She claimed sex discrimination and unfair dismissal after seeing an advert shortly after her redundancy stating that the company was seeking recruitment consultants.
This case is an example of a common scenario for employers that operate in male-dominated environments: a challenge to the authority of a female manager by a group of male employees who are not used to being managed by a woman.
This case is an example of an employer that needed to deal with the extremely difficult issue of having a disciplinary matter pending against a member of staff on maternity leave.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that, where there are multiple respondents and particular loss cannot be attributed to one party, employment tribunals must award compensation on a joint and several liability basis, meaning that the claimant can claim the entire amount from any respondent.
This Northern Ireland industrial tribunal decision is a succinct example of an employer discriminating against a female employee with childcare responsibilities by having inflexible working hours.
In Martin v Devonshires Solicitors EAT/0086/10, the EAT held that, where an employer dismisses an employee in response to his or her protected act, the employer may not have unlawfully victimised the employee where the reason for the dismissal was some feature of the protected act that can be treated as separable.