Indirect Discrimination against people who are not in a Protected Group

Indirect Discrimination against people who are not in a Protected Group

Indirect discrimination is where an employer applies a non discriminatory or apparently neutral condition or practice, but that actually has a greater negative impact on a protected group. For example, the need to run 100 meters in 12 seconds as a criteria, appears neutral, but the number of one legged people (disabled) who can comply with it is much less than non disabled.

In a recent case heard by the Employment Appeal Tribunal, the courts have extended protection to people who don’t share the characteristic, but suffer the same detriment.

So using the example above, now someone who is not disabled, may join a claim by disabled people, if they themselves are unable to do the distance in the time.

In this case it was airline staff, where a new schedule was introduced. A claim for indirect discrimination was brought by women, who were disadvantaged by caring responsibility, and by foreign staff, who had to commute and were disadvantaged by the change. This was sex, and nationality discrimination.

The claim was joined by a man who had caring responsibility, and an English ex pat who lived abroad. Their claim was challenged because they did not share the protected characteristic. The EAT quashed the challenge. The case is https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2024/131.html

This case highlights that protection from discrimination extends further than most employers would probably expect.