The Employment Appeal Tribunal has ruled that an RAF sergeant can proceed with her claim for maternity discrimination after an important fitness test was cancelled because she was pregnant.
Her initial claim at the employment tribunal was thrown out, but the EAT ruled that legal mistakes were made in the decision on her original claim.
In 2017, Haylee Curtis was a corporal with the RAF and had passed a promotions board, which meant she was eligible for promotion to the rank of sergeant. To apply, she needed to obtain a full fitness certificate, but had recently sustained an injury playing netball so had been medically downgraded.
In August 2017, she was scheduled to attend a medical assessment so she could obtain her certificate, but shortly beforehand discovered she was pregnant. This meant her attendance at the medical board was cancelled, so she could no longer apply for the promotion.
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The EAT heard that although she was subsequently appointed to sergeant, the cancellation of that appointment “had long-term, negative, consequences for her career and career extension”.
Curtis went on maternity leave in November 2017, and in April 2018, she was offered a sergeant role at a base a long way from her home base in Honington, Suffolk. She concluded it was not feasible to take the role.
She then noticed that a similar vacancy had come up at the Military Correction Training Centre in Colchester, which was closer, and applied for this role. She was not successful, and was told this was because she required a full fitness certificate.
She has since been promoted, but argued that her career extension – the period of career security service personnel are granted – would have been “significantly longer” if she had been promoted at an earlier date.
In her service complaint filed in 2019, she identified a number of grievances, including a lack of welfare support while on maternity leave, that her career was not managed effectively while she was on leave, and that she was required to perform work-related duties while on leave that accrued financial costs.
In setting out these facts, the tribunal heard, she described the problems she encountered because of the cancellation of the medical board. But in fact, the RAF had not passed the complaint about this to the investigation.
In a subsequent letter informing her of the outcome of her service complaint, it appeared that all of her complaints had been passed for investigation, and no reference was made to the cancellation of the board not being admissible.
At the initial employment tribunal, her claim for pregnancy discrimination was struck out on the grounds that it had no jurisdiction to hear it because it had not been included within the summary of claims in her service complaint.
Furthermore, the judge ruled that the jurisdiction conferred by the Equality Act 2010 “did not apply to serving members of the armed forces” unless it had been the subject of a service complaint.
EAT Judge Katherine Tucker ruled that the tribunal had dismissed the complaint “in error”. She said there was “no doubt” that Sgt Curtis had included a complaint about the cancellation of her medical review within her service complaint.
“The military authorities then had an opportunity to address that complaint… they did not do so, for reasons which remain wholly unclear,” she said.
The RAF “failed to inform [Sgt Curtis] that part of the complaint was inadmissible, as they were mandated to do by relevant statutory provisions”, she added.
The case now returns to an employment tribunal to be reheard.
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