Age discrimination

New and updated

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Age discrimination: youthful pub manager boasted about "new young dynamic team" to "redundant" older worker

  A pub manager in his first supervisory role left to his own devices made a series of errors in dismissing a disabled older worker, in a case with so many mistakes by management that it could be used to train line managers on employment issues.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Age discrimination against teenager dismissed at 18 to avoid national minimum wage increase

  In this case, the industrial tribunal in Northern Ireland described a small employer's decision to dismiss a young worker to avoid having to increase her pay from £4.00 to the national minimum wage rate of £4.92, when she reached the age of 18, as "callous".

• Date:

  19 September 2011

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Age discrimination: German collective agreement requiring pilots to retire at 60

  The European Court of Justice has held that a rule in a collective agreement applicable to the crew of the German airline Deutsche Lufthansa prohibiting pilots from flying after the age of 60 is discriminatory on the ground of age. 

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Age discrimination: local authority employee's redundancy timed to avoid pension costs

  In this decision, the employment tribunal was critical of a local authority that failed to keep an employee at risk of redundancy in employment for six more months during a transitional period. The decision had been taken to avoid a pension payout and constituted direct age discrimination and unfair dismissal.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Age discrimination: hard-to-manage contract worker not let go because of his youth

  This unusual age discrimination claim was brought by a contract worker with poor people skills who believed that his contract was terminated because of his youth.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Shop manager told older supervisor that she was "too old for sex"

  In this case, a female employee was harassed on the ground of her age by her younger manager.

• Date:

  25 July 2011

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  ECJ considers justification of compulsory retirement at 65 in German context

  The European Court of Justice has held that German legislation that requires civil servants to retire at 65 can be justified if "appropriate and necessary" means are used to achieve the aim of balancing the employment levels of young and older civil servants to encourage the recruitment and promotion of young people. It also stressed that budgetary considerations cannot by themselves constitute a legitimate aim in relation to a member state's social policy. 

• Date:

  5 July 2011

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Age discrimination: EAT refuses to interfere with tribunal's wide-ranging recommendations

  The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that the employment tribunal was entitled to impose a wide range of recommendations on a school that it found had committed age discrimination, included requiring a review of many of its policies by an HR professional. 

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Case round-up

  Joanne Magill, associate, and Claire Benson and Ceri Hughes, managing associates, at Addleshaw Goddard detail the latest rulings.

• Type:

  FAQs

  Can an employer stop providing group risk insured benefits such as life assurance or private medical cover to employees when they reach a certain age?