The Court of Appeal has held that the poor treatment of vulnerable migrant workers because of their immigration status is not race discrimination.

In Crime Reduction Initiatives (CRI) v Lawrence UKEAT/0319/13, the EAT held that a poorly drafted letter inviting the claimant to a disciplinary meeting when it should have referred to a capability meeting which had the effect of deterring her from attending was not relevant to the question of whether her employer had been objectively justified in deciding to dismiss her.

The EAT recently held that it is not discriminatory to dismiss a woman for absence due to post-natal depression where that absence continues after the end of her maternity leave. Where an employee is absent after her maternity leave due to a pregnancy related illness, the employer is entitled to take into account the absence after maternity leave and compare that period with any period of sickness of a man.

In Tirkey v Chandok, it was found that a claim for caste discrimination could be brought in a Tribunal under the Equality Act 2010.

In discrimination cases, employers are responsible for the actions of both employees and their agents. But who is an employer’s agent?

In Mohamud v WM Morrison, the Court of Appeal found that an employer was not vicariously liable for its employee’s physical assault on a customer because there was not a sufficiently close connection between the employee’s actions and his employment.

In Olivier v Department for Work and Pensions, the Tribunal found a strong commitment to a political party amounts to as much of a protected belief for the purposes of bringing a discrimination claim as a religious belief.

The Court of Appeal said that the concept that ‘not working on a Sunday is not core to Christian belief’ is irrelevant for Tribunals working out whether a Christian’s belief that she should not be required to work on Sundays for faith reasons should be granted.

It was widely publicised before Christmas that John McCririck, horse-racing pundit, lost his age discrimination claim against Channel 4. The Tribunal appears to have found that the decision to dismiss Mr McCririck was not age-related but due to his sexist views, unpalatable presenting style and controversial appearances on reality TV shows. That said, the Tribunal judgment stands up poorly under legal scrutiny and the factual basis for the decision is not entirely clear.

In order to establish discrimination, a Claimant must establish that they have been treated differently to a comparator whose circumstances are materially the same to their own (with the only difference being a protected characteristic such as age, race, disability etc). In Lockwood v. DWP, an age discrimination case, the Court of Appeal gave short shrift to the suggestion that there was a material difference between groups of workers (and therefore no comparator) on the basis of circumstances intrinsically linked to age.

In Croft Vets Ltd v Butcher, the Employer Appeal Tribunal found that an employer should have agreed to pay for private psychiatric counselling for an employee who was suffering from work-related stress to help her return to work.

Ms Little worked as a full time sales executive for Richmond Pharmacology. Richmond required all its sales executives to work full time to provide high customer service.