Colonel Waite had obtained employment with the civil service in 1967 under the Civil Service Code’s relevant terms and conditions which provided for a retirement age of 60. Although the employers could defer retirement under these terms and conditions until 65, employees had no right to stay on after 60. Colonel Waite was compulsorily retired in his 61st year and brought a claim for unfair dismissal. The question was whether his claim was barred as being brought after his ‘normal retiring age’.
Held: Nothman stated the law in terms which were too rigid and inflexible. If the normal retiring age is to be ascertained exclusively from the relevant contract of employment, even in cases where the vast majority of employees in the group concerned do not retire at the contractual age, the result would be to give the word ‘normal’ a highly artificial meaning.’ and ‘I therefore reject the view that the contractual retiring age conclusively fixes the normal retiring age. I accept that where there is a contractual retiring age, applicable to all, or nearly all, the employees holding the position which the appellant employee held, there is a presumption that the contractual retiring age is the normal retiring age for the group. ‘
Lord Fraser of Tullybelton
[1983] 2 AC 714, [1983] UKHL 7
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Corrected – Nothman v Barnet London Borough County Council HL 1978
The normal retiring age for an employee is to be found by looking exclusively at the conditions of employment applicable to the group of employees holding his position.
Lord Salmon said: ‘If a woman’s conditions of employment provide that her . .
Cited by:
Cited – Wall v The British Compressed Air Society CA 10-Dec-2003
The applicant was employed as director-general, with his contract stating that his retirement age would be 70. Nobody else had a similar occupation within the organisation, and he said this therefore constituted his ‘normal age’ for retirement, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.190502
