EAT PREGNANCY AND DISCRIMINATION
An Employment Tribunal found that a Police dog handler, one of whose two narcotics Police dogs was removed from her when she told the force she was pregnant, had suffered a detriment by being exposed to a risk that on her return to work she would suffer financial loss and career disadvantage. It held that the reason for the removal of the dog from her, and subsequently a failure to re-allocate the dog to her before the end of her maternity leave, was because of her pregnancy and maternity, and hence was directly discriminatory. An argument that this took too broad an approach to the question of causation was rejected.
The Tribunal had rejected a claim of indirect sex discrimination arising out of the application to the Claimant of the force’s policy to remove a dog from its handler where the handler was likely to be non-operational for a while, as when pregnant. It did so on the basis (i) (possibly) that the Claimant could not succeed both in respect of indirect and direct discrimination in respect of the same circumstances; (ii) that the policy would have an adverse impact only in some, but not all, cases where a PC was non-operational; and (iii) that there was no detriment since there was only a ‘risk’ or ‘potential’ disadvantage.
Held: As to (i), the heads of claim were different, and it was thus possible for the same events to give rise both to direct pregnancy discrimination and indirect sex discrimination; as to (ii) that the policy only produced disadvantage in some cases was no reason to exclude it from causing indirect discrimination; and as to (iii) a real risk is capable of being a detriment, as the ET had itself recognised when dealing with the claim for direct discrimination.
Langstaff P J
[2014] UKEAT 0463 – 12 – 0403, [2014] Eq LR 386, [2014] ICR 1073
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
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EAT Sex Discrimination : Direct – Pregnancy and discrimination
In respect of pregnancy and maternity discrimination the Employment Tribunal did not apply the correct legal test. Onu v Akwiku [2014] ICR 571 . .
At EAT – P v The Commissioner of Police for The Metropolis CA 20-Jan-2016
The claimant appealed against rejection of her claim of disability discrimination against the Police Misconduct Panel on the basis that the Panel was a judicial body and as such enjoyed immunity from suit. She had been assaulted, suffering PTSD. She . .
At EAT – P v Commissioner of Police of The Metropolis SC 25-Oct-2017
This appeal concerns the directly effective right of police officers under EU law to have the principle of equal treatment applied to them. The question raised is whether the enforcement of that right by means of proceedings in the Employment . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment, Discrimination
Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.522142