Eversheds v De Belin | Employment Law Advocates

A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about a case in which a male employee successfully claimed sex discrimination against his employer, a law firm, when it made him redundant ahead of a female colleague who was on maternity leave.

There has now been an appeal against that decision which was unsuccessful on the main ground of appeal, although it was successful on a secondary point concerning remedy. The Employment Appeal Tribunal found that the employer could not rely upon “special treatment in connection with pregnancy” because the favourable treatment afforded to the pregnant employee went further than was necessary and proportionate. Interestingly, however, the possibility was left open that the defence could potentially be used in an redundancy situation although it was left unclear as to exactly where the boundary would be drawn.