Claire Benson is managing associate and Helen Corbett, Sinead Jones, Helen Ward and Tori O'Neil are associates at Addleshaw Goddard LLP. They round up the latest rulings.
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 it was not a reasonable adjustment for the subjective redundancy selection criteria by which a disabled employee who was at risk of redundancy was judged to be removed from the process.
In X v Mid Sussex Citizens’ Advice Bureau and others [2011] EWCA Civ 28 CA, the Court of Appeal held that a volunteer at a Citizens’ Advice Bureau was not an employee for the purposes of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and could not therefore claim disability discrimination when she was asked to stop her voluntary work.
This case is a prime example of the problems that can occur in a workplace when a member of staff is undergoing IVF treatment in a bid to get pregnant.