Equality, diversity and human rights

New and updated

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Case round-up

  Judith Harris, professional support lawyer at Addleshaw Goddard, outlines the latest legal rulings.

• Date:

  23 August 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Romec Ltd v Rudham

  In Romec Ltd v Rudham EAT/0069/07, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that an employment tribunal erred in its approach to deciding whether or not an employer's failure to extend a disabled employee's phased return to work was a breach of the duty to make reasonable adjustments.

• Date:

  18 July 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Maternity leave: Right to return to work

  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.

• Date:

  11 July 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: No obligation to continue to pay full sick pay to disabled employee

  In O'Hanlon v Commissioners for Inland Revenue & Customs [2007] IRLR 404 CA, the Court of Appeal held that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 does not require an employer to continue paying a disabled employee whose entitlement to sick pay has been exhausted by disability-related absence.

• Date:

  11 July 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Victimisation: Employer went beyond what was reasonable

  In St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council v Derbyshire and others [2007] IRLR 504 HL, the House of Lords held that an employer that wrote to a number of equal pay litigants and their colleagues warning of potential job losses if they continued with their claims victimised them contrary to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

• Date:

  1 July 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Burden of proof in disability discrimination cases

  The EAT provides guidance on shifting the burden of proof in disability discrimination claims, in Project Management Institute v Latif (10 May 2007).

• Date:

  27 June 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Equal pay: Job evaluation scheme did not have retrospective effect

  In 1) Bainbridge & Ors 2) Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council v 1) Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council 2) Williams EAT/0424/06 & EAT/0031/07 the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that successful equal pay claims confer the right to up to six years' back pay prior to the institution of proceedings.

• Date:

  30 May 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Human rights: Union did not act unlawfully in expelling BNP member

  In Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) v United Kingdom [2007] IRLR 361, a case of competing rights of association under art. 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, a trade union's right to expel a member of the BNP because his values conflicted fundamentally with its own outweighed the individual's right to membership of the union.

• Date:

  14 May 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Sex discrimination: Prima facie case requires more than a difference in sex and a difference in treatment

  In Madarassy v Nomura International plc [2007] IRLR 246, the Court of Appeal has held that a "possibility" of discrimination arising only from a difference in gender and a difference in treatment is not, without more, sufficient to support an inference of unlawful discrimination, thereby shifting the burden of proof to the employer.

• Date:

  8 May 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Spence v Intype Libra Ltd

  In Spence v Intype Libra Ltd EAT/0617/06, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that a failure to obtain and consult on a medical report before dismissing an employee does not in itself breach the duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees.