The Equality Bill seeks both to consolidate existing discrimination legislation and to introduce a number of reforms. One of the discrimination strands on which it has a major impact is disability. This is largely because of the recent rulings in Coleman v Attridge Law and London Borough of Lewisham v Malcolm, which the Bill seeks to implement.
The provision on direct discrimination takes into account the ruling in Coleman that direct discrimination should encompass discrimination by association, for example less favourable treatment of an employee because he or she has a disabled child. However, the impact of the new provision on “discrimination arising from disability”, which attempts to rectify the situation created by Malcolm and re-establish an appropriate balance between a detriment arising from a disability and the employer’s ability to defend its treatment of the disabled individual, is less clear. Consultant editor Darren Newman examines these and other proposed changes to disability discrimination law in the first of a series of articles on the Equality Bill.
Recent additions to the XpertHR case reports section include Matuszowicz v Kingston Upon Hull City Council, a disability discrimination case. The Court of Appeal was asked to decide when the time limit for submitting a discrimination claim starts to run in circumstances where the employee relies on the employer’s long-term failure to carry out a reasonable adjustment.
In the 2008 case of Consistent Group Ltd v Kalwak, the Court of Appeal appeared to suggest that a contract can be regarded as a sham only if there was an intention to deceive a third party about the true nature of the contract. In Protectacoat Firthglow Ltd v Szilagyi, the Court was invited to look again at the circumstances in which a contract that purports not to be a contract of employment can be regarded as a sham.
|
