EAT Jurisdictional Points : Extension of Time: Just and Equitable
UNFAIR DISMISSAL – Reason for dismissal including substantial other reason
VICTIMISATION DISCRIMINATION
SEX DISCRIMINATION – Burden of proof
PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – Appellate jurisdiction/reasons/Burns-Barke
The Claimant/Appellant worked as a teacher in the girls’ section of the Respondent’s Madrassah. She took on extra duties with the encouragement of the Respondent. Later she was given a letter which in effect removed these extra duties. She brought an Employment Tribunal claim for sex discrimination in response. Later she was suspended. She brought two further claims in the ET alleging victimization. The ET rejected all the claims on the merits and the sex discrimination claim on limitation.
The ET made the following errors of law:
(1) they rejected the sex discrimination claim on the basis there was objectively speaking no ‘demotion’ but failed to consider whether a reasonable employee might have taken the view that her treatment was to her detriment;
(2) in considering limitation in connection with the sex discrimination claim, they wrongly failed to take into account relative prejudice, concentrating only on the reasons for the lateness of the claim, and thus failed to consider what was ‘just and equitable’;
(3) on the victimization claims, they appear wrongly to have considered the primary cause of the decision to suspend the Claimant rather than whether her sex discrimination claim was a ‘significant factor’ in the decision and in any event they omitted to deal with the notes of a meeting of the Respondent’s board from which a strong inference could have been drawn that the claim did cause or influence that decision.
The claims were remitted to a differently constituted ET.
Shanks HHJ
[2014] UKEAT 0312 – 13 – 1405
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment, Discrimination
Updated: 17 December 2021; Ref: scu.535106