Race discrimination; it is unlawful to segregate employees by race, even if facilities are equal.
Race discrimination; discovery; an employee is entitled to statistics on the ethnic makeup of the workforce.
Race discrimination; membership of a group; one can be discriminated against based on the perception of group membership.
Discrimination; inference; a finding of discrimination can be inferred from the employer's failure to explain differential treatment.
Race discrimination; procedure; allowed amendments to add a claim of institutional racism.
Discrimination; jurisdiction; post-employment acts; internal appeal. The Court of Appeal held that a complaint about the conduct of an internal appeal heard after dismissal fell outside s.4(2) of the Race Relations Act 1976, which protected only a person in employment; a claim of discrimination or victimisation in respect of events after the employment ended could not be brought. Teinaz v Wandsworth LBC [2002] ICR 1471 records it as the jurisdictional obstacle facing a post-employment victimisation complaint, one which 'short of the Court of Appeal, appeared very hard to overcome'. Since overtaken by Rhys-Harper v Relaxion Group plc [2003] UKHL 33 and s.108 EqA 2010.
Discrimination; inference; unreasonable treatment alone is not enough to infer discrimination; there must be 'something more'.
Discrimination; comparator; the comparator must be in relevantly similar circumstances.
Race Discrimination; Victimisation; Causation. The House of Lords (as it then was) held that the 'reason why' test focuses on the conscious or subconscious influence of the protected characteristic on the decision-maker. Motive, whether benign or malicious, is irrelevant if the prohibited ground had a 'significant influence' on the outcome.
Race discrimination; tribunals must look for indicators of bias in the wider factual matrix, as discrimination is rarely overt.
Discrimination; these claims are fact-sensitive and should rarely be struck out without hearing evidence.
Indirect discrimination; closed recruitment; pool for comparison; detriment. The Lord Chancellor appointed a close acquaintance, a white male solicitor, as his special adviser without advertising the post. A black woman solicitor claimed indirect sex and race discrimination, the alleged requirement being membership of his circle of acquaintances, which was overwhelmingly white and male. The Court of Appeal held the claim failed for want of detriment: she could not have met the other criteria for the post even had the selection been opened up, and a sense of grievance at exclusion from the process is not a detriment. The court's view that a detriment needs a material physical or economic consequence was later disapproved by the House of Lords in Shamoon.
Discrimination; burden of proof; clarified the two-stage test for shifting the burden to the employer.
Race discrimination; political affiliation; 'on racial grounds'. The Court of Appeal restored the tribunal's dismissal of a race discrimination claim by a bus driver dismissed after his election as a BNP councillor, Serco citing the safety of its largely Asian passengers and workforce [4]-[8]. This was not an unfair dismissal claim and the court expressed no view on fairness, observing that dismissal for political activity is not in general fair [10]-[11]. The dismissal was not 'on racial grounds': Showboat protects those who refuse to implement a racially discriminatory policy, not an employer acting on concern about an employee's racist views in a multi-ethnic workplace, and racial considerations among the circumstances do not make the ground racial [43]-[47]. Nor was BNP membership a proxy for being white [48]-[49]. No provision, criterion or practice had been identified, so indirect discrimination failed [53]-[54]. Strasbourg later found a breach of Article 11 (Redfearn v UK (2013) 57 EHRR 2), which led to s.108(4) ERA 1996 removing the qualifying period for dismissals on grounds of political opinion.
Discrimination; burden of proof; a difference in status and difference in treatment is not enough to shift the burden.
Race discrimination; motive; a school admission policy based on Jewish matrilineal descent was direct race discrimination (motive irrelevant).
Discrimination; burden of proof; the Supreme Court held that the two-stage burden of proof test is a tool, not a substitute for the tribunal's duty to find the facts and draw inferences.
Discrimination; race; mistreatment of a migrant worker on grounds of immigration status is not necessarily race discrimination.
Race discrimination; illegality; immigration status; the defense of illegality did not defeat a claim for race discrimination where the public policy against trafficking outweighed the public policy against illegal contracts.
Race discrimination; immigration status; discrimination on the grounds of immigration status does not constitute discrimination on the grounds of nationality or race.
Race discrimination; harassment related to race; constructive unfair dismissal. A Black Nigerian consultant rheumatologist succeeded in claims of direct race discrimination where his name was excluded from biologic prescriptions in favour of a departmental name used for white colleagues. The grievance hearing outcome also constituted race discrimination by sustaining the discriminatory practice rather than correcting it. Harassment related to race succeeded. Constructive dismissal succeeded. All other claims dismissed.