10th September 2010
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This month
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Legal updates
- Religious discrimination
- Narrow interpretation of Discrimination laws
- Limits on TUPE consultation
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Case archive
Enquiries
T: +44 (0) 1451 812 225
Narrow interpretation of Discrimination laws
Malcolm vs Lewisham
EAT/0293/08
Key facts
Malcolm vs Lewisham established the House of Lords approach in a housing case where an extra hurdle was created for claimants by clarifying an appropriate comparator for a claim, effectively making it difficult for claimants to argue ‘disability related’ discrimination. The House of Lords ruling means, for an example, an employer dismissing an employee following a 12 month absence would be dismissing them for the absence, not for the disability which lies behind it, since the correct comparator would be another employee who was absent for a year and not disabled.
Decision
The EAT has confirmed that it will take the same approach in employment cases – good news for employers.
Our view
Sighs of relief need to be tempered for a while since there seems to be a good chance that this will feature as a ‘correction’ in the forthcoming discrimination consolidation bill.
