FULL RECOMMENDATION
SECTION 83 (1), EMPLOYMENT EQUALITY ACTS, 1998 TO 2015 PARTIES : JAZZ PHARMACEUTICALS IRELAND LIMITED (MR KEVIN BELL INSTRUCTED BY MATHESON SOLICITORS) - AND - MS NIKKI SPILLANE (REPRESENTED BY CRUSHELL & CO SOLICITORS) DIVISION:
SUBJECT: 1.Appeal Of Adjudication Officer Decision No(S) ADJ-00021256, CA-00043152-001. The Complainant appealed to this Court.
The complaint was based on two grounds covered by the Acts i.e. the gender ground and the family status ground. The complaint on the family status ground was withdrawn at the hearing. A complaint of harassment under the Acts was withdrawn in the course of the hearing. The issue for the Court to consider is a complaint of discrimination on the gender ground due to maternity leave/pregnancy. Note; Names of third parties referred to in the hearing are anonymised. Summary of Complainant arguments. The Complainant was not afforded the opportunity to return to work after her maternity leave on the same terms and conditions as applied to her prior to that leave. She was not afforded the opportunity to undertake the same nature and amount of work. Her grievances were dismissed by her employer. Just before her return to work in September 2020, the Complainant was informed that she would be working to Mr. Paul Sebastian as part of a new Global Workplace team. She was informed that Ms. T, who was brought in to cover the Complainant’s maternity leave, would remain with the company for at least six months and that they would share the same role, job title, job level and she was told that they should work together. Subsequently, Mr. Sebastian advised the Complainant that his intention was to retain Ms. T permanently. The Complainant, on her return, immediately felt excluded from her role. There was no handover on her return. When she enquired multiple times, she was told that this was not necessary as Ms. T would continue to carry out the duties in question. She was excluded from meetings and decision making related to projects that were part of her responsibility. She was told that her input was not required. As a result, the Complainant often had nothing to do. The Complainant appreciated that Covid 19 had altered the day-to-day role but she expected to be busy adapting the office and procedures. However, her entire role was carried out by Ms. T. If the Complainant had not taken maternity leave, she would have led the response to Covid 19 in the Dublin office. She would have been capable of doing so and has gone on to have this responsibility in her new employment. It was not necessary to retain Ms. T for the project of changing vendors so that Acacia Facilities Management would manage all facilities vendors going forward. If the Complainant had not taken maternity leave that would have been part of her role. Despite a statement by the Respondent before the AO, the Complainant never requested that she be facilitated in working from home on a full-time basis. She expected to be back in the office on a full time basis. When she queried if she would be working from home or from the office, it was simply to establish some practical arrangements such as setting up a home office, if necessary. If the Complainant had needed to work from home, a colleague, Mr. B could have covered the office, if necessary. These events replicated in many respects the events experienced by the Complainant upon her return from an earlier period of maternity leave in 2017. When she queried being sidelined at that time, she was made to feel deeply uncomfortable and she felt bullied. The Complainant had many conversations with Mr. Sebastian in an attempt to have her concerns addressed. When she felt that she was not making progress, she emailed him on 25 November 2020 with her concerns. Initially, Mr. Sebastian indicated to the Complainant that it would take time for her to settle after her return. In a call on 6 October 2020, he said that her role had changed due to Covid 19 and he warned against escalating issues outside the team. In this call, he mentioned his wish to retain Ms. T and said that this would allow the Complainant to put family first. The Complainant regarded this as a threat. The Complainant never made any request for special treatment. All she sought was to have her role back. The complainant was shocked at Mr. Sebastian’s response to the email of 25 November. He stated that Covid 19 had reduced her role, in which case there was no logic in retaining the Complainant’s maternity cover. He also seemed to be putting the onus on the Complainant to find work. He told her to focus on her goals for 2021 but it is not fair to expect a woman returning from maternity leave to wait for months to resume her role. He also suggested that the Complainant assume Front of House Administrator duties, a role that she held previously, which would amount to a demotion. She had no objections to helping out but she objected to assuming a more junior position while somebody else performed her role. The Complainant declined Mr. Sebastian’s suggestion of an escalation of her concerns to his direct manager but she regarded his previous comments as threats and there was a break down in trust. The entire experience has had a significant impact on the Complainant, financially and career wise. It has knocked her confidence and it has been extremely stressful and upsetting for her. The Acts prohibit pregnancy related discrimination. In the case of Dekker v. Stichting Vormingscentrum voor Jong Volwassenen , (ECJ 177/88), it was noted that discriminatory acts on grounds of pregnancy are directly discriminatory on the gender ground as pregnancy is a uniquely female condition. In the case of Browne v. Rentokil (1998 ECRI/4185) and that of Webb v EMO Cargo (C-32/94) the European Court of Justice ruled that the entire period of pregnancy and maternity leave is a protected period. Entitlement to return to work following maternity leave is protected by the Maternity Protection Acts, (1994 and 2004) and where it is not ‘reasonably practicable’ for an employee to return to their previous job, they are entitled to be offered suitable alternative employment under a new contract, which cannot be less favourable than the original contract. With regard to redress, the Court is referred to Mullen v. BCon Communications Ltd. (DEC-E2014-007) which, in turn referred to the ECJ case of Von Colson v Nordrhein -Westfalen in which the Court stated that sanction for breaches of Community rights must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive. In that case, the Complainant was subjected to a range of unlawful treatment. When she attempted to exercise her right to return to work, her employer made it difficult for her, misrepresented the true position by informing her that her role no longer existed and offered her alternative employment that amounted to a demotion. The redress awarded reflected these facts. The distress suffered by the Complainant is comparable in nature. Summary of Respondent arguments. The Respondent refutes the Complainant’s arguments in their entirety. She has never been subjected to any adverse, or less favourable, treatment. She returned to the same nature and volume of work as she would have done if she had not taken maternity leave. Covid 19 necessitated changes in the nature of work for all employees. These were temporary in nature. The Respondent’s interactions with the Complainant, as evidenced by the emails provided to the Court, were compassionate, accommodating and focused on the Complainant’s well-being. The Complainant has brought these proceedings without exhausting the internal processes available to her. While the Complainant was on maternity leave, the Respondent made changes to harmonise the role of Office and Facilities Managers across the global locations operated by the Respondent. Manager-level positions of Global Workforce Managers were created, an up-grade of the Complainant’s position. She was in the process of transitioning to this new role when she resigned. When the Complainant took maternity leave, initially her role was covered by another employee. When that employee left the company, Ms. T was retained on a fixed term contract between the Respondent and her employer. Ms. T was responsible for the co-ordination of the Respondent’s workplace response to the pandemic, which arose when the Complainant was on maternity leave. When the Complainant returned to work, she was instructed to carry out her previous role plus the up-graded global co-ordination duties that came with the role of Global Workplace Manager. She was provided with her new job description. The only difference in her role was that she had become part of a global team with a more globally co-ordinated and strategic focus. It was communicated to her that the priority was the response to Covid 19. The Complainant’s role was not down-graded and it was emphasised to her that Ms. T was there on a temporary basis to support her and the Respondent as part of dealing with the challenges of the pandemic. The contract for Ms. T’s services was extended to ensure continuity in making the office ready for the return of employees after lockdown. The Complainant had expressed concerns about how often she would be required to attend the office physically. As evidenced by correspondence, Mr. Sebastian operated a ‘family first’ approach and accommodated the Complainant in working from home. Mr. Sebastian believed that retaining the services of Ms. T would assist in this regard. He also facilitated the Complainant in returning to full duties while working from home. As a result of the pandemic, the workplace had changed significantly while the Complainant was on maternity leave. This had an obvious impact on the role of Office and Facilities Manager. The primary requirement was now flexibility in responding to the rapidly changing situation. On 24 November 2020, Mr. Sebastian had a detailed conversation with the Complainant in which he clarified that Ms. T would only be working with her on a temporary basis in order to provide support during the pandemic. He stated that he wanted the Complainant to work on strategy, long-term goals, global co-ordination of the Respondent’s workplaces and on vendors’ contracts. The Complainant made no mention of feeling underworked. The following day, Mr Sebastian was surprised to receive an email from the Complainant raising concerns. She stated that she felt ‘underutilised’. Mr. Sebastian responded to express his surprise. He outlined the challenges due to the pandemic and provided extensive feedback and detailed suggestions of work that the Complainant could perform. This included some front of house duties previously carried out by a recently departed colleague. He showed the Complainant support and encouragement. The Complainant commenced a period of sick leave on 30 November and Mr. Sebastian emailed her to reassure her not to worry about work but to get well. When the Complainant emailed him about an extension of her sick leave, Mr. Sebastian replied ‘Family first…to hell with everything else’. The Complainant sent a letter of resignation on 14 December 2020, stating that she was resigning with immediate effect. HR reached out immediately. The Complainant stated that she had been under pressure since her return to work. Ms. Heffernan of HR emailed her on 16 December and afforded her the opportunity to rescind her resignation and, instead, to raise a formal grievance. Ms. Heffernan issued a reminder on 18 December and informed the Complainant that if she did not get a reply by 22 December, she would take it that the Complainant did not wish to rescind her resignation. On 22 December, Ms. Heffernan emailed the Complainant to state that her resignation had been reluctantly accepted. It is not accurate for the Complainant to describe Ms. T as her ‘peer’. The latter was temporary maternity cover. She was a representative of Acacia Facilities Management, providing services to the Respondent in accordance with the contract with Acacia. The Complainant’s work was reduced due to the pandemic, for reasons utterly unrelated to her maternity leave. She had the same duties and responsibilities and was in the course of being promoted. The Complainant was facilitated in her wish to work from home and with other requests for flexibility. The Respondent denies that the Complainant was mistreated in any way after her previous pregnancy. The Respondent denies that the Complainant was in any way excluded from meetings and projects and she failed to raise any such complaint at the time that this is alleged to have occurred. Mr. Sebastian did not inform the Complainant that Ms. T would be retained permanently. The suggestion that the Complainant found exchanges with Mr. Sebastian to be ‘unsettling’ is bizarre as he communicated to her an approach of ‘family first’, for which the Complainant expressed appreciation. It is not true that Mr. Sebastian refused to address the Complainant’s concerns. He gave her time and attention and his emails show a considerate tone. A once in a lifetime pandemic had a practical effect on the Complainant’s role. All staff were required to undertake duties including those of more junior staff during the pandemic. Examples of tasks undertaken by Mr. Sebastian are provided to the Court. Ms. T had not taken over the Complainant’s role. No objective assessment of Mr. Sebastian’s emails can support the suggestion that they contain threats. S. 85A(1) of the Acts requires the Complainant to establish facts from which it may be presumed that there has been discrimination before the burden shifts to the Respondent to prove the contrary. The Court elaborated on this matter in Southern Health Board v. Mitchell (2001) DEE011 and in Cork City Council v. McCarthy (2008) EDA0821. In Melbury Developments Ltd v. Valpeters (2009) EDA0917, the Court noted that mere speculation cannot be elevated to a factual basis. In the case of Gino’s Italian Ice Cream v. Nolan (2020) EDA2017, the Court noted that to discharge the ‘prima facie’ burden of proof, a complainant in a maternity case must prove that she was treated adversely because of her condition. In the instant case, the Complainant was treated with a wide degree of latitude. The Respondent pursued a proactive ‘family first’ approach. The Complainant has not set out any link between changes in her work and her status as a woman who took maternity leave. Any changes were a necessary response to the circumstances of the pandemic. These changes were experienced by all staff members in people-facing positions. Given the nature of the complaint about her role, the Complainant was obliged to exhaust the internal Grievance Policy and the Respondent could have taken remedial action if it felt that was warranted. The most serious allegations in her resignation letter were entirely new and were not set out in the email of 25 November. Nonetheless, the Respondent afforded the Complainant the opportunity to rescind her resignation. The Complainant provided no real opportunity to the Respondent to resolve her grievance. Far from being excluded, the Complainant was informed that her role was being enhanced and that she was being promoted. This does not suggest discriminatory intent. The Complainant was advised that when the contract terminated for Ms. T’s services in 2021, the Complainant would have sole responsibility at the Dublin site of the Global Workforce team. The Respondent’s efforts to ensure continuity of the business, given Ms. T’s central role in co-ordinating the response to the pandemic, cannot constitute discrimination against the Complainant. It was entirely reasonable to extend the retention of temporary staff to ensure a smooth and safe return to the workplace after the pandemic. Had the Complainant not taken maternity leave, the pandemic would have intervened in an identical manner. The same changes to the workplace would have been necessary. Clearly, many of the responsibilities of the Complainant’s job description were affected by the pandemic but the roles and duties assigned to her on her return fall within her remit. Summary of witness evidence. Ms. Nikki Spillane. Ms. Spillane is the Complainant. The witness outlined how she had started working for the Respondent as a Front of House Administrator and had been promoted to the role of Office and Facilities Manager. On her return from maternity leave in September 2020, the witness said that she was told that her role had changed, that she would be working in a more global capacity. She had not worked previously with Mr. Sebastian, who was her line manager after her return. He told her that it was the intention to keep Ms. T for at least 6 months. Ms. T had come from Acacia, who were service providers, to cover the witness’ maternity leave. Mr. Sebastian told her that he would prefer to keep Ms. T on. The witness received her revised job description in October. There was no discussion regarding terms and conditions. The only handover involved the witness being given documents to read. The witness said that she had little to do but Ms. T was very busy. No tasks were assigned to the witness and when she tried to get involved, she was told that she was not needed. She busied herself flushing taps, changing sanitisers etc. She recognised that her job had changed due to the pandemic but her role was still there and Ms. T was doing the job and was doing tasks that the witness was qualified to do. The Global Workplace Manager was there to manage service provision but Ms. T was doing this and Mr. Sebastian told the witness that she was not needed. The witness said that she had never asked to be treated differently and that she kept asking to be involved. It was very difficult to watch Ms. T do her job. The witness said that she was unavailable twice after her return, once due to annual leave and once due to Covid. She had never requested flexible or remote working. She had never said that she did not want to be in the office. The witness said that there were no health and safety reasons to retain Ms. T as she was reading the Government guidelines, something of which the witness was well capable of doing. She was the Covid officer in her new job. The witness said that she had very little collaboration with Ms. T as she was ‘fobbed off’ when she tried to get involved. If she had not taken maternity leave, the witness said that she would have been responsible for the Covid response. The witness said that she had always been willing to do whatever was needed but that asking her to do the front of house role full-time was a case of her being demoted. The witness said that it was not fair for her to be demoted and then to await Ms. T’s departure to determine her long term role. The witness said that she spoke to Mr. Sebastian every week about her concerns but nothing happened. She kept being given tasks just to keep her occupied but no real work. She thought about what she might do. She felt that she could not go to HR because a HR representative had previously just sat there when the witness was subject to threatening behaviour from a manager. The witness felt that she could not come back to work after Mr. Sebastian’s email on 26 November. She was stressed and overwhelmed. She did not accept that her resignation was premature, she felt that she had no choice and she could not even be sure that Ms. T would definitely leave when the time came due. Somebody else was doing her job and that was very stressful. In cross examination, the witness was referred to email exchanges in which she expressed the return to work as daunting. She accepted that it was reasonable for the Respondent to retain somebody responsible but said that this was only so for a short handover period. The witness said that she expected to be back in the office full-time but had probably indicated a preference for a mix of home and office attendance. When asked if she felt the ‘family first’ approach applied only to her, the witness said that she did not appreciate being told that somebody else was doing her job. The witness said that she had discussed with Mr. Sebastian his vision to move to the outsourcing of facilities. She said that she was told that her input was not needed. Her offer to lead the project was turned down. It was put to the witness that the intention was to have Acacia oversee the service providers and that it was intended that her job would be to oversee Acacia. The witness said that she did not know as she had never been brought in to be involved. The witness said that any such proposal had not rolled out and that existing vendors had to be managed but that she could not do this as she was not made aware of what agreements had been made with them. When she was asked what prevented her from knowing if a cleaner had done their work, the witness said that she had no idea of the agreed schedule and she did not even know the names of the cleaners for the first period as she had been excluded. Mr. Paul Sebastian. Mr. Sebastian is Head of the Global Workplace for the Respondent. The witness said that he had 42 years’ experience and that he had been tasked with up-dating the Respondent’s policies and procedures, to standardise and to get the team to think globally. The witness said that the Complainant’s role was being moved to a higher level in the category of management and was intended to be more tactical. He had handed the task to HR to look at remuneration. The intention was to outsource facilities under management by people doing the role performed by the Complainant. However, this was delayed due to Covid, which required focus on adherence to regulations. There was a significant drop off in workload, which was concentrated then on health and safety and basic maintenance. There was no distinction in the work to be performed and the witness, himself, had handled mail, reception duties, delivered chairs, cleaned refrigerators etc. The witness said that when the initial cover for the Complainant’s maternity leave left the company, the services of Acacia had been engaged. He had already been looking at having a services provider to oversee vendors. Acacia had expertise that was useful in the pandemic. They had provided Ms. T. Initially, there had been a lot of work for her as documents were out of date and the witness had leaned on her to prepare the site for the workforce return. The witness said that he spoke to the Complainant about her return in a zoom call. He thought that the meeting went well. He had told her that her role was to ensure the flexibility to enable necessary adaptations. The witness said that Ms. T carried out the functions specified in the Respondent’s contract with her employer. He had used her to help to facilitate the Complainant in easing back into her role and he had told Ms. T that she would be working to the Complainant in the future, when the Complainant’s role would be to manage Acacia’s delivery to the Respondent. He confirmed that the Complainant did not ask for any special treatment and that she was very professional in her approach. The witness said that he wanted to err on the side of caution and that if Ms. T left there would be less bandwidth. He denied ever making or implying any threat. The witness confirmed that the Complainant had, on occasions, indicated that she had no work but said that this was true of a lot of his staff in the uncertain environment of the time. However, Acacia were still necessary to help in the plan for the workforce return. He noted that there was a lot of worry for people about their continued employment and his main concern was to ensure that his team got through the situation together. The witness denied excluding the Complainant, fobbing her off or telling her that she was not needed. The witness said that there had not been any issue about the Complainant’s title. He said that he had never directed that the Complainant take directions from Ms. T, he had asked them to work together and he had expected two professionals to work the issues out between them. He did not see the need for directions in a collaborative environment. He saw the arrangements as a transition to Acacia managing vendors as they could use their leverage to secure prices that the Respondent could not. Regardless of who was the Global Workplace Manager, Acacia was there to stay. The witness said that he thought the discussion with the Complainant on 24 November had gone well. It was a fairly standard conversation. He was stunned at the email the following day. He had not picked up the levels of concern from the conversation and he had tried to reassure the Complainant when they spoke. He had understood that she was frustrated as were many staff. He had been surprised that the Complainant had complained about being under utilised and that was the context of his suggestion that she take on the front of house role. It was not at all intended to suggest a demotion, rather he had tried to get her to focus on the future. The front of house role idea was purely temporary and the permanent receptionist was due back in February. Ms. T had covered this role at times. The witness said that he was not putting the responsibility on the Complainant to find work, it was a collaboration, not a top down arrangement. The Complainant was too talented to require instruction and he wanted her to say what she thought. The witness said that his offer to escalate the grievance was sincere but the Complainant had resigned. He was shocked and disappointed with this. The Complainant was the expert in Dublin that he required. He denied any discrimination against her and said that he really wanted her in her role. In cross examination, the witness said that he was not aware that Irish law required that a returnee from maternity leave was entitled to maintain her terms and conditions but he said that he had done nothing to change these. The witness listed functions that the Complainant had undertaken. It was put to him that many of these were menial and he noted the need for all staff to be flexible in the pandemic. He noted also other more managerial tasks that were required and denied that these had all been carried out by Ms. T. He felt that the two had been working well together. While the witness accepted that the Complainant had expressed frustration, he said that it had not been put to him at the depths now being conveyed. He just wanted the two professionals to work together. The witness said that he stepped back from the matter after the email of 25 November as HR needed to be involved. The witness said that the handover to the Complainant was much more comprehensive than was alluded to and contracts had been up-dated. The witness said that there was no reason for the Complainant to have concerns regarding Acacia. The witness had believed that he had the luxury of time because of Covid for the Complainant to get used to her role. The witness said that his own personal experience had caused him to believe in a ‘family first’ approach. In response to questions from the Court, the witness said that he had never got the sense of the depth of the Complainant’s frustrations in his conversations with her. He had laid out to her what he knew about her promotion and that details were to be handled by HR. There had been no negativity regarding this. The witness said that the future role of Acacia, as part of a global approach by the Respondent, had been explained to the Complainant. Towards the end of her employment, the concerns raised were related mainly to the volume of her work. The applicable law. Employment Equality Act Discrimination for the purposes of this Act. 6. (1) For the purposes of this Act and without prejudice to its provisions relating to discrimination occurring in particular circumstances discrimination shall be taken to occur where— (a) a person is treated less favourably than another person is, has been or would be treated in a comparable situation on any of the grounds specified in subsection (2) (in this Act referred to as the "discriminatory grounds") which— (i) exists, (ii) existed but no longer exists, (iii) may exist in the future, or (iv) is imputed to the person concerned, (b) a person who is associated with another person— (i) is treated, by virtue of that association, less favourably than a person who is not so associated is, has been or would be treated in a comparable situation, and (ii) similar treatment of that other person on any of the discriminatory grounds would, by virtue of paragraph (a), constitute discrimination.] (2) As between any 2 persons, the discriminatory grounds (and the descriptions of those grounds for the purposes of this Act) are— (a) that one is a woman and the other is a man (in this Act referred to as “the gender ground”), Deliberation In the case of Croc’s Hair and Beauty v. Helen Ahern, ADE/16/58, this Court set out at some length its understanding of the legal protections for pregnant women. It is not necessary to re-state here the full text of the Court’s Determination in that case. It is sufficient to summarise this by referring to the fact that the then ECJ recognised in the Dekker case, to which the Complainant’s submission has referred, that, as pregnancy is a uniquely female condition, any less favourable treatment on grounds of pregnancy constitutes direct discrimination on grounds of gender. In drawing on these sources and on relevant case law, this Court in the Croc’s case observed that the special protection afforded to women from the commencement of their pregnancy until the end of their maternity leave is to be regarded as a fundamental right and that where a pregnant woman is treated adversely because of her condition during this period, the employer bears the burden of proving, on cogent and credible evidence, that such treatment was in no sense related to her pregnancy. The first issue, therefore, for the Court to consider is if, in fact, there was adverse treatment of the Complainant in contravention of the provisions of the Acts. It is not argued for the Complainant that she suffered any diminution in remuneration or that her contractual arrangements were subjected to disimprovement due to her pregnancy. Indeed, the evidence suggests that there was, in the least, a possibility of some improvements for the Complainant in terms of both remuneration and status. Rather, the Complainant argues that she was excluded from involvement in an area of work proper to her role that would have come under her responsibility if she had not taken maternity leave. In this regard, the Court notes that the Complainant was, according to evidence from Mr. Sebastian, not alone in her frustration at her reduced workload. Furthermore, it is not for the Court to dictate to the Respondent how it organises its business, provided it does so in accordance with its employment law obligations. The facts are that the Complainant was returned to her previous role and also that she was in the process of receiving a promotion. Mr. Sebastian’s credible evidence is that he availed of the services of Acacia because of their expertise and that he intended to continue to avail of their services because of his vision of a new business approach for outsourcing the management of vendors. Frankly, it is impossible to say as a matter of fact whether or not Acacia would have been used as they were if the Complainant had not taken maternity leave. Certainly, there could have been no prohibition on the Respondent doing so. While Acacia was brought in to cover the Complainant’s maternity leave, the Respondent was intent upon developing their role, under the management of the Complainant. That being the case, the Complainant’s assertion that Ms. T, for Acacia, was carrying out a role that she would have carried out if she had not taken maternity leave falls firmly into the categories of speculation and conjecture. The fact that the Respondent responded as they did to the unforeseen circumstances of the pandemic cannot be grounds for a complaint of discrimination. There was no diminution in the Complainant’s role. There was a diminution in her workload caused by the pandemic and she had a strongly held opinion that somebody else was doing work proper to her. Whether or not this grievance was valid was never tested as she declined the opportunity to pursue her grievance through the Respondent’s internal procedure. However, even if she was shown to be correct, it cannot be shown that the Respondent’s ongoing response to the pandemic by the retention of Acacia was due to the Complainant’s earlier absence on maternity leave or that, by doing what they did, the Respondent infringed their legal obligations to the Complainant. The over-riding entitlement for a worker to return to their role after maternity leave cannot be extended to a prohibition on employers to react to crises or to place a requirement on them to freeze all duties and functions exactly as they were prior to the maternity leave, even if a major and unforeseen event occurs. Even without the backdrop of the pandemic, such a blanket prohibition could, self evidently, create intolerable strains in the conduct of business. What is prohibited is any less favourable treatment due to pregnancy. No diminution occurred in terms and conditions in the instant case, the Complainant was on course for becoming the manager of Acacia’s obligations to the Respondent and the Court is not satisfied that a case has been made out that the Complainant was treated less favourably due to pregnancy. No ‘prima facie’ case of discrimination has been established. The Complainant’s appeal must fail. Determination. The Decision of the Adjudication Officer is upheld.
NOTE Enquiries concerning this Determination should be addressed to Ian Kelly, Court Secretary. |
