Smyth v Croft Inns Ltd
| Jurisdiction | Northern Ireland |
| Judgment Date | 01 January 1995 |
| Date | 01 January 1995 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Northern Ireland) |
- Constructive dismissal - Respondent Roman Catholic barman working in loyalist area - Respondent threatened by customers -Appellant employer telling respondent that he could either stay or go - Respondent leaving - Whether respondent constructively dismissed - Whether appellant breached implied term in contract of employment not to damage relationship of confidence and trust between employer and employee -Discrimination - Whether discrimination on the grounds of religious belief or political opinion -Correct test to be applied - Fair Employment (Northern Ireland) Act, 1976, s. 16 (4A).
The respondent worked as a barman from 8 February, 1990, until on or about 25 March, 1991, in the appellant's bar in a loyalist area of Belfast. The customers of the bar were Protestants. There were five employees in the bar - a manager who was a Roman Catholic, two females who worked in the bar who were Roman Catholic, the charge-hand barman who was a Protestant, and the respondent who was a Roman Catholic. The respondent had been spoken to in the bar by customers in abusive sectarian terms on a couple of occasions but did not regard the abuse as serious and did not report it to the management. On or about 23 March, 1991, two persons approached the charge-hand barman in the bar and told him he should advise the respondent not to be in the bar the following week. The charge-hand was told that this came from 'someone of higher authority'. The charge-hand told the respondent what had happened and the respondent, who expected the appellant to take some action on the threat, turned up for work the following Monday. He received a telephone call to the bar from the manager who told him that he could either stay or go. The respondent decided to leave because of the threat and the appellant's failure to do anything about it. The Fair Employment Tribunal found that the respondent had been unlawfully discriminated against by the appellant on the grounds of religious belief, contrary to s. 16 of the Fair Employment (Northern Ireland) Act, 1976, when he was constructively dismissed from his employment as a barman by the appellant. The appellant appealed contending, inter alia, that the tribunal had not been entitled to find that the respondent had been constructively dismissed and, that even if it had been so entitled, the constructive dismissal did not constitute discrimination on the grounds of religious belief. The appellant submitted...
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Mwanahamisi Mruke v Saeeda Kamal Khan
...in an attempt to meet that kind of difficulty that Ms Monaghan relied on the decision of the Court of Appeal of Northern Ireland in Smyth v Croft Inns Ltd [1996] IRLR 84. In that case Mr Smyth was a Catholic, who was employed as a barman in a pub with Protestant customers in a loyalist area......
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MacDonald v Ministry of Defence
...of the legislative prohibition. 13 For this reason the appellants are not assisted by the Northern Ireland case of Smyth v Croft Inns Ltd [1996] IRLR 84, where a barman in a public house with Protestant customers in a 'loyalist' area of Belfast was constructively dismissed because he was a ......
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Macdonald v. Scotland (Advocate General), [2003] N.R. Uned. 173 (HL)
...legislative prohibition. [13] For this reason the appellants are not assisted by the Northern Ireland case of Smyth v. Croft Inns Ltd. [1996] IRLR 84, where a barman in a public house with Protestant customers in a 'loyalist' area of Belfast was constructively dismissed because he was a Rom......
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HM Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills v The Interim Executive Board of Al-Hijrah School The Secretary of State for Education (First Intervener) The Equality and Human Rights Commission (Second Intervener) Southall Black Sisters and Inspire (Third Interveners)
...interpretation rather than a narrow one: see, for example, Jones v Tower Boot Co Ltd [1997] IRCR 168 at [31]. 57 Smyth v Croft Inns Ltd [1996] IRLR 84 was a Northern Ireland case, in which the Fair Employment Tribunal found that the applicant was unlawfully discriminated against by his empl......
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God, labor, and the law: the pursuit of religious equality in Northern Ireland's workforce.
...(London), July 17, 1996, at 20; see also Moriarty, supra note 268. (270.) See Ulster, supra note 263. (271.) Smyth v. Craft Inns Ltd., [1996] I.R.L.R. 84 (N.Ir. C.A.), available in LEXIS, UK Library, ALLCAS (272.) See id. (273.) See id. (274.) See id. (275.) See id. (276.) See Dick Grogan, ......