13 February 2012

Discrimination the ground of marital status

The Equality Act 2010, like its predecessors, protects those with the protected characteristic of marriage from discrimination on the ground of that characteristic. Does this concept, originally introduced to deal with the out-moded practice of dismissing women as soon as they married, which still continued into the 1960s, have any current relevance in the 21st century?

Dunn v The Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management shows that it still has a place in modern employment law.  In this case, the EAT looked at a situation where the discrimination did not take place simply because the claimant was married, but because she was married to a particular individual. Mrs Dunn was unfairly constructively dismissed, and alleged that the reason for this was that she was married specifically to her husband: Mr Dunn was also employed by the same employer, and in dispute with it over his other business interests. There was no evidence that the unfavourable treatment was because of her marital status alone, so the claim could only succeed on this ground if discrimination on the grounds of marital status extends to cover the situation of being married to a particular person.

The EAT in this case followed the precedent set in Chief Constable of the Bedfordshire Constabulary v Graham [2002] IRLR 239, in which the EAT had ruled that "a person who is married or who is in a civil partnership is protected against discrimination on the ground of that relationship and on the ground of their relationship to the other partner. Any less favourable treatment which is marriage-specific is unlawful."

So, regardless of the fact that her employers had no issue with the fact that she was married as such, Mrs Dunn was still protected from, and had suffered, discrimination - specifically on the ground of being married to Mr Dunn.