Equal pay: Equal pay claim can be brought on contingent basis

Key points

• In South Ayrshire Council v Milligan [2003] IRLR 153, the Court of Session holds that an employment tribunal was entitled to find that a male primary school head teacher could claim equal pay with male secondary school head teachers by naming as comparator a female colleague on the same or less pay than himself, but who, in her own equal pay claim, had cited as comparators those male secondary school head teachers.
• The female colleague was a valid comparator in such a claim because it was a contingent claim founded on the success of her own indirect discrimination claim against the employer.