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09 July 2020 / Ian Smith
Issue: 7894 / Categories: Features , Employment , Discrimination
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Employment law brief: 9 July 2020

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Ian Smith walks the line of three recent employment cases

In brief

  • Dismiss all and invite reapplications: not a panacea?
  • The limits of marriage/civil partnership discrimination.
  • The relationship between discrimination arising from disability and unfair dismissal.

There is something of a theme to the three cases considered in this month’s Brief, in that they all concern borderlines and the drawing of legal lines—(1) the distinction between reorganisation and redundancy, (2) where to draw the boundary of the legal protection against discrimination on the grounds of marriage and (3) how the laws on unfair dismissal and discrimination arising from disability interrelate in a case of dismissal because of disability-related incapability.

Dismiss & reapply

The decision in Gwynedd Council v Barratt UKEAT/0206/18explores a difficult distinction in redundancy unfair dismissal law between classic cases of selection from a pool on the one hand and the modern tactic of dismissing all and inviting them to apply for the jobs available. This ultimately raises the basic question:

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