This week’s case roundup
Can the same facts give rise to claims for both direct and indirect
discrimination?
Jaffrey v Department of Environment, Transport and Regions, EAT [2002]
IRLR 688
Jaffrey was employed by the department as an administrative officer subject
to an annual appraisal which dictated his rate of pay.
Following one such appraisal, he commenced a claim of direct discrimination
against his line manager (who was white) in respect of how the appraisal was
conducted. He also sought, to challenge the department’s appraisal scheme
itself as indirectly discriminatory against ethnic minority employees. The
tribunal agreed Jaffrey’s annual appraisal had been conducted in a
discriminatory fashion and had resulted in a loss of performance-related pay.
He was accordingly made an award for that loss of pay, for loss of promotion
and £7,500 for injury to feelings. His claim that the appraisal process was
indirectly discriminatory failed, as the court held that the poor performance
arose from the direct discrimination of the line manager who operated the
system unfairly, not from the system itself. Jaffrey’s appeal was also
unsuccessful.
Determining jurisdiction is not easy
Rogers v Markel Corporation, High Court, [2002] EWHC 1138
This month, the High Court was called upon to clarify the UK’s legal
jurisdiction in respect of a tricky, but by no means unusual arrangement.
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Rogers was employed on an American contract by a subsidiary of a US company
based in the UK. He was British and had always worked here. When his employment
came to an end however, he wanted to claim additional payments he believed were
due to him. Since his contract arose in the US, did he have to get leave of the
US court to issue proceedings in the UK?
The Court concluded that any claim could be heard in the UK. Relevant
factors included that UK lawyers had been involved over many months, interim
payments were not available to Rogers in the US and his costs in bringing a
claim in Virginia, US, even were he to win, would be prohibitive.
