Family-friendly rights and support
We look at four employment tribunal cases in which the claimants successfully argued that they were discriminated against during difficult pregnancies and pregnancy loss.
In Price v Powys County Council, the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that an employment tribunal was entitled to reject a male employee's sex discrimination claim against an employer that enhances adoption pay but not shared parental pay.
In Ali v Capita Customer Management Ltd; Chief Constable of Leicestershire Police v Hextall, the Court of Appeal rejected sex discrimination claims brought by male staff against employers that enhance maternity pay but not shared parental pay.
In South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust v Jackson and others, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that, as long as the miscommunication came from an administrative error, an employee whose redundancy redeployment form was sent to an inaccessible work email address was not unfavourably treated because she was on maternity leave.
In Hextall v Chief Constable of Leicestershire Police and another, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) remitted to a fresh tribunal the issue of whether or not a police force's policy of giving a period of full pay to mothers on maternity leave, but paying only statutory shared parental pay to partners, is indirectly discriminatory.
In Capita Customer Management Ltd v Ali and another, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that the failure to pay a father shared parental pay at the same rate as an employee on maternity leave is not sex discrimination.
An employment tribunal has held that it was direct sex discrimination for a new father whose wife had post-natal depression to be allowed to take only two weeks' leave on full pay, when female staff were entitled to 14 weeks' enhanced maternity leave.
In this well-publicised case, easyJet's refusal to limit the shift lengths of two cabin crew who were breastfeeding led to awards for indirect sex discrimination totalling almost £35,000.
An employment tribunal in Scotland has awarded £28,321 to a Network Rail employee over his employer's policy of giving a period of full pay to mothers and primary adopters on shared parental leave, but paying only statutory shared parental pay to partners and secondary adopters.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that it is not discriminatory for an employer that offers childcare vouchers in return for a deduction from pay to cease to offer the vouchers during maternity leave.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to family-friendly rights and support.