Tag: Eady J

Cowie & Ors v Scottish Fire and Rescue Service

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EAT, Eady J , Mr D G Smith and Mr S J W Torrance, [2022] EAT 121, 11 August 2022

The defendant fire service was sued by two groups of employees, the first disabled workers who had shielded during Covid and the second women who had faced disruption to childcare arrangements during Covid. The defendant permitted staff to accrue time off in lieu (TOIL) through working overtime and operated a special leave policy which permitted staff who had exhausted TOIL entitlements to request time off to deal with emergencies and unforeseen needs. Continue reading →

Mackereth v Department for Work and Pensions & Anor

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EAT, Eady J, Mr D Bleiman and Mr D G Smith, [2022] EAT 99, 29 June 2022

The claimant, a doctor and former full-time evangelist, was engaged as a health and disabilities assessor (DAD) by the second defendant which provided services for the DWP. The role involved assessing individuals who applied for disability-related benefits, including in face-to-face interviews. Whereas the DWP’s policy was to refer to transgender people by their preferred names and titles, the claimant promptly objected to speaking to or about people other than in terms consist with their sex registered at birth. He was dismissed after a month and complained that he had been subject to harassment, direct and indirect discrimination because of his religious and/or philosophical beliefs. Continue reading →

Pitcher v Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford

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EAT: Eady J, Mr D G Smith, Dr G Smith MBE EA-2019-000638-RN, EA-2020-000128-RN, 27 September 2021

Guest blog by Ben Mitchell 11 KBW

In 1933 Erwin Schrödinger took up an academic post at the University of Oxford. This was two years before he created his eponymous thought-experiment, “Schrödinger’s Cat”. He was 48 years old. Too young, if he were teleported to today, to hit Oxford’s current Employer Justified Retirement Age (“EJRA”) of 67. However, had he had cause to consider the EJRA or, more precisely, the EAT’s substantial judgment addressing whether it constitutes age discrimination in Pitcher v University of Oxford, we may now have been able to consider the sequel thought experiment: Schrödinger’s Age Discrimination. Continue reading →