Equality, diversity and human rights
In Kuddus v Chief Constable of Leicestershire Constabulary [2001] UKHL 29, the House of Lords allowed an appeal against a strike out of a claim for exemplary damages for the tort of misfeasance. It held that exemplary damages were not restricted to causes of action for which exemplary damages had been awarded prior to 1964. The House of Lords did not expressly decide whether exemplary damages should be available in discrimination cases.
In Scott v London Borough of Hillingdon [2001] EWCA Civ 2005 CA, the Court of Appeal held that an employment tribunal was wrong to infer knowledge of a protected act on the part of three councillors who had decided not to offer a job to the claimant, and therefore to find victimisation, since knowledge on the part of the alleged discriminator of the protected act is a pre-condition to a finding of victimisation.
The Court of Appeal holds that when an employer continued an investigation into the activities of a black female employee for longer than an ordinary investigation would have taken, for reasons connected with her ethnic origin, the employer subjected her to a "detriment" within the meaning of the Race Relations Act 1976. We review the case of Garry v London Borough of Ealing.
The Court of Appeal gives important guidance on how far tribunals need to go in exploring the circumstances of a claim. Plus cases on protected disclosure, redundancy selection, discrimination by an agent, working time exemptions and constructive dismissal.
In Brunnhofer v Bank der osterreichischen Postsparkasse AG1 the European Court of Justice rules that in comparing the pay of men and women for the purposes of an equal pay claim, the fact that the employees concerned are classified in the same job category under a collective agreement is not in itself sufficient to lead to a conclusion that they perform the same work or work of equal value.
In Fasipe v London Fire and Civil Defence Authority a London South employment tribunal (Chair: G H K Meeran) has awarded compensation of £224,949 for race discrimination and victimisation.
In Ekpe v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, the EAT reverses an employment tribunal's decision that a woman with an impairment of her right hand, constituting a weakness of some of the muscles required for its full function, did not have a disability for the purposes of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
In HM Prison Service v Salmon, the EAT upholds an award of £20,000 for injury to feelings, including £5,000 aggravated damages, and a separate, undiscounted award of £15,000 for psychiatric injury, made by an employment tribunal that had partially upheld a former prison officer's complaint of unlawful sex discrimination.
In Anya v University of Oxford the Court of Appeal has ruled that where an employer behaves unreasonably towards a black employee, it is an error of law for a tribunal to direct itself that an inference of race discrimination is not to be drawn, without more, because the employer might very well behave in a similarly unreasonable fashion to a white employee.
In Anirah v Asda Stores Ltd a Stratford employment tribunal (Chair: V K Gay) rejects an employer's defence that in creating and publishing an equality policy and training its staff, it had taken such steps as were reasonably practicable to prevent one of its male managers from discriminating on the grounds of sex.
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