Jessemey v Rowstock Ltd and Another
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 26 February 2014 |
| Date | 26 February 2014 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Justice Maurice Kay, Lord Justice Ryder and Lord Justice Underhill
The Equality Act 2010 had to be read as prohibiting acts of victimisation such as writing a bad reference committed against a former employee.
The Court of Appeal so stated when allowing the appeal of Mr P. Jessemey against a decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (Mr Recorder Luba, QC, Mr B. Beynon, Mr S. Yeboah)ICR ([2013] ICR 807) which dismissed his appeal against a decision by the employment tribunal sitting at Reading dism issing his claim against his former employer Rowstock Ltd and its director Mr Davis for victimisation pursuant to section 108 of the Equality Act 2010.
The claimant had brought claims alleging age discrimination and unfair dismissal for reasons of retirement. After the employer gave him an unfavourable reference, he brought a further claim alleging that he had been victimised because of the tribunal proceedings he had initiated.
On the victimisation claim, the Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld the tribunal's decision that, although the poor reference had been given because of the tribunal proceedings, section 108(7) of the 2010 Act precluded former employees from pursuing claims of postemployment victimisation and it there fore had no jurisdiction to hear the claim.
In a later case, Onu v Akwiwu, a differently constituted Employment Appeal Tribunal (Mr Justice Langstaff, Mr B. Beynon and Mr P. Gammon)ICR ([2013] ICR 1039) came to the opposite conclusion. The Court of Appeal heard appeals in both cases on the same occasion and took into account submission s from counsel in Onu but treated the instant case as the lead case. It gave a separate substantive judgment in Onu on other unrelated issuesUNK ([2014] EWCA Civ 279).
Ms Karon Monaghan, QC and Mr Christopher Milsom for the claimant; Mr John Crosfill and Mr Jason Braier for the employer; Mr James Robottom for the claimant in Onu; Mr Jake Dutton, solicitor, for the employers in Onu.
LORD JUSTICE UNDERHILL said that the issue raised was of practical importance because claims by former employees that their employer had acted to their prejudice following the termination of the employment, typically, though by no means only, by giving a bad (or no) reference, were n ot at all uncommon.
It was common ground that, in the light of the wider contextual material, the apparent failure of the statute to...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Compliance
...corporate monitor. 66. See , e.g. , Steven Davidoff Solomon, In Corporate Monitor, a Well-Paying Job But Unknown Results , NY TIMES (Apr. 15, 2014), https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/in-corporate-monitor-a-well-paying-job-but-unknown-results/. 67. Sokol, supra note 42, at 828. 68. Id.......
-
Inequality and what to do about it: Thomas Piketty.
...at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/416267. Wolf, M. (2014) 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty', Financial Times 15.4.2014. Wolff, R. P. (2014) 'Thomas Piketty on capital in the twenty-first century, part four', The Philosopher's Stone 31.3.2014, at http://robertpau......