Family-friendly rights and support
In Shackletons Garden Centre Ltd v Lowe EAT/0161/10, the EAT held that an employment tribunal had insufficient evidence for its finding that an employee returning from maternity leave suffered indirect sex discrimination when her employer required her to work weekend shifts on the same basis as the other sales staff.
In Johal v Equality and Human Rights Commission EAT/0541/09, the EAT held that the employer's failure to inform an employee on maternity leave of a job vacancy was not an act of sex discrimination.
Claire Benson, Rebekah Martin and Poppy Fildes, associates at Addleshaw Goddard, detail the latest rulings.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that, on the facts of the case, an employer did not commit sex discrimination against an employee on maternity leave when an administrative error meant that she was not informed of a job vacancy.
The European Court of Justice ruled in April 2010 that workers who take parental leave cannot, after the leave, be deprived of their annual leave entitlement accumulated during the year preceding the birth of their child. The judgment also deals with the rights of part-time and fixed-term workers.
In Atkins v Coyle Personnel plc EAT/0206/07, the EAT held that, for an employee to claim successfully that his dismissal was related to the fact that he had taken paternity leave, there must be a causal link between the dismissal and the leave.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that an employee who was sick during her ordinary maternity leave was not entitled to be paid contractual sick pay during that period.
In Blundell v The Governing Body of St Andrew's Catholic Primary School and another EAT/0329/06 the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that a teacher returning to work following maternity leave was not entitled to return to the same class that she had been teaching when her maternity leave began.
In New Southern Railway Ltd v Quinn [2006] IRLR 606 EAT, the Employment Appeal Tribunal holds that an employer's duty to take steps to "avoid" risk to a pregnant woman means that the risk should be reduced to its lowest acceptable level - not that it must be removed completely.
In Hoyland v Asda Stores Ltd [2006] All ER (D) 133 CS, the Court of Session holds that despite being described as "discretionary" a bonus scheme was "regulated" by the employee's contract of employment and therefore fell outside the scope of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to family-friendly rights and support.