The right of a part-time worker not to be treated less favourably than a comparable full-time worker. Home Office v Holmes; Ryan v South Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust.
Indirect sex discrimination; part-time workers; judicial notice. IDS cites the EAT's decision as an instance, in an indirect sex discrimination claim, of judicial notice being taken that a higher proportion of women than men work part time. IDS adds that the willingness of the courts to dispense with formal proof of general facts of that kind is commonplace where the PCP has been applied to a large pool, such as the workforce as a whole. [Summary checked against a practitioner text, not the judgment.]
Discrimination; justification; the tribunal must perform a critical evaluation of the employer's reasons, not just accept them.
“The principle of proportionality requires the tribunal to take into account the reasonable needs of the business. But it has to make its own judgment, upon a fair and detailed analysis of the working practices and business considerations involved, as to whether the proposal is reasonably necessary.”Pill LJ, at [32]
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References found in the judgments’ text, with the number of paragraphs in which each case is mentioned. Not a classification: how a case was treated is recorded under Later history.
Age discrimination; indirect; particular disadvantage and the structure of the justification exercise. A requirement to hold a law degree for the top grade put Mr Homer, who was four years from retirement, at a particular disadvantage because of his age: the disadvantage need not flow from the age group's inability to comply, only from the fact that age made compliance futile. On justification the Supreme Court did not decide the point but remitted it, the tribunal having failed to approach proportionality 'in a suitably structured way' — it must weigh the discriminatory effect against the employer's reasonable needs and ask whether a less discriminatory alternative (such as a grandfather clause) would have served the aim.
“To be proportionate, a measure has to be both an appropriate means of achieving the legitimate aim and (reasonably) necessary in order to do so.”Lady Hale, at [22]
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Cites
References found in the judgments’ text, with the number of paragraphs in which each case is mentioned. Not a classification: how a case was treated is recorded under Later history.
Indirect discrimination; group disadvantage; judicial notice. The EAT (Choudhury P) held that group disadvantage can be established in several ways: by statistical or other tangible evidence, by inference from particular disadvantage in the individual case, by the disadvantage being inherent in the PCP, or by matters of which judicial notice should be taken. The absence of statistical evidence should not usually lead to the claim being rejected at the outset. The tribunal erred in failing to take judicial notice of the 'childcare disparity': women bear the greater burden of childcare than men, which can limit their ability to work certain hours. A claimant's own disadvantage will not always establish group disadvantage. [Summary checked against a practitioner text, not the judgment.]
Indirect discrimination; individual disadvantage; correspondence with group disadvantage. The EAT held that individual disadvantage suffered by the claimant must correspond to the group disadvantage, a claimant cannot succeed if the disadvantage they personally suffer is qualitatively different from the disadvantage suffered by the group sharing the relevant protected characteristic. [Summary checked against a practitioner text, not the judgment.]
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References found in the judgments’ text, with the number of paragraphs in which each case is mentioned. Not a classification: how a case was treated is recorded under Later history.