The government will allow coverage of caste discrimination to develop through case law, rather than including it expressly in the Equality Act. Caste is not expressly included among the protected characteristics in the EqA. However the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Chandhok v Tirkey (2014) held that in at least some circumstances caste should fall within... Read more »
The Court of Appeal considered how far an employer may be liable under the EqA for harassment by third parties. In Unite the Union v Nailard www.bailii.org elected officers of the union at Heathrow had sexually harassed a paid union officer. The Court of Appeal upheld the decision that the elected officials were agents of... Read more »
In a case on medical training, the EAT held it was an error for the tribunal to treat the NHS as one entity. The EAT said that the legal tests for reasonable adjustments need to be applied separately to each body (eg each Trust, HEE), bearing in mind for example what steps each would be... Read more »
The Supreme Court has upheld lower decisions that the claimant was a ‘worker’, entitled to claim disability discrimination and paid holiday. In Pimlico Plumbers v Smith www.bailii.org the ’employer’ sought to argue a plumber was genuinely self-employed. The plumber was treated as such for tax purposes. However he had to wear the employer’s uniform, and... Read more »
Diana Kloss distinguishes between mandatory health records and OH’s confidential clinical records. Mandatory health records have minimum retention periods set by regulations, such as 40 years under COSHH. However it is important to be clear that this is different from OH’s confidential clinical records with the detailed results of tests and other clinical information. Read... Read more »
We have now published fuller material on the GDPR in our ‘Data protection’ section. The GDPR, and also the Data Protection Act 2018, took effect on 25th May 2018. They are discussed on the new web pages at Data protection (GDPR). This revised GDPR section joins the existing blogs by Diana Kloss: GDPR: the data... Read more »
Knowledge of link between misconduct and disability. The Court of Appeal has confirmed that employers who know of a disability can be liable for disability discrimination for imposing a disproportionate penalty for misconduct even without being aware of a link between the disability and misconduct. Diana Kloss suggests this could lead to further questions being... Read more »
Diana Kloss considers privacy notices required to be given to workers and other data subjects under the GDPR from this May. The GDPR and Data Protection Bill are due to take effect on 25th May 2018. Data subjects have the right to be informed about the collection and use of their personal data. It is... Read more »
The Supreme Court has held that asymptomatic platinum sensitisation can form the basis of an action in negligence, unlike pleural plaques caused by exposure to asbestos fibre. The claimants in Dryden v Johnson Matthey plc (www.bailii.org) had developed platinum salts sensitisation. This meant they had to leave their jobs to avoid the possibility of further... Read more »
The EAT has held that an in situ cancer was automatically a disability within the Equality Act 2010. Cancer is automatically a disability by virtue of EqA Sch 1 para 6(1). However the consultant in this case, Lofty v Hamis t/a First Café, bailii.org, had described the claimant’s skin condition as ‘pre-cancerous’. She had lentigo maligna,... Read more »
